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Divisioa     _tj  ^  G  T"  O 

.5.  VilZ 


Section 


PROPHECY 


,IUN    5  1911 


A,    .^.-..^ 


PROPHECT 

JEWISH    AND    CHRISTIA 


CONSIDERED    IN    A    SERIES    OF 

WARBURTON    LECTURES    AT 

LINCOLN'S  INN 

v/ 

BY    HENEY    WAGE,    D.D. 

DEAN  OF  CANTEEBURY 
SOMETIME  PREACHER  OF  LINCOLN'S  INN 


MILWAUKEE 

THE    YOUNG    CHURCHMAN    CO. 

1911 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Introduction       .....         i 

I.  The  Prophetic  Character  of  the  Jew- 
ish AND  Christian  Religions  .  .        17 

II.  The  General  Character  of  Old  Testa- 
ment Prophecy    .  .  .  -34 

III.  The  Value  of  Prophecy  as  an  Evidence 

OF  Revelation      .  .  .  -55 

IV.  The    Development    of    the    Messianic 

Hope  .....        74 

V.  The  Principle  of  Faith  in  Prophecy     .       92 

VI.  Prophecy  and  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven      113 

VII.  The   Use  of   Old  Testament  Prophecy 

in  the  New  Testament  .  .      131 

VIII.  Prophecy  in  Our  Lord's  Ministry  .      149 

IX.  Prophecy  in  the  Epistles  of  the  New 

Testament.  .  .  .  .171 


WARBURTON    LECTURES 
ON    PROPHECY 

INTRODUCTION 

These  lectures  were  preached  in  the  Chapel 
of  Lincoln's  Inn,  on  the  foundation  of 
Bishop  Warburton,  in  the  course  of  the 
years  1894  to  1898.  Their  publication  has 
been  delayed,  partly  by  the  constant  pressure 
of  public  duties,  and  partly  because  I  wished 
to  consider  whether  the  development  of  the 
criticism  of  the  Old  Testament  would 
materially  affect  the  traditional  point  of  view 
from  which,  in  the  main,  Scripture  prophecy 
is  here  treated.  The  result  has  been  to 
Sfive  me  reason  for  satisfaction  that  I  have 
improved  upon  the  Horatian  rule  of  reserving 
serious  writings  for  at  least  nine  years. 
The  course  of  archaeological  discovery  since 
these  lectures  were  preached  has,  without 
exception,    tended  to   confirm   the  historical 

1  A 


4 


2  INTRODUCTION 

truth  of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures,  from 
the  Book  of  Genesis  onwards ;  and  the 
remarkable  lectures  delivered  last  year  by 
Professor  Kittel  of  Leipzig  to  the  National 
School  Teachers  of  Saxony  ^  exhibit  a 
remarkable  reversion  towards  old  views  from 
the  theories  which  were  popularised  twenty 
years  ago.  Those  theories,  of  course,  still 
find  their  adherents  In  various  degrees,  but 
each  year  seems  to  cut  the  ground  from 
under  them.  Every  year  seems  to  afford 
new  encouragement  to  those  who  have  all 
along  ventured  to  retain  the  conviction,  that 
it  would  ultimately  prove  that  there  is  good 
foundation  for  the  universal  and  continuous 
belief  of  the  Jewish  and  Christian  Churches, 
for  about  two  thousand  years,  respecting 
their  sacred  Scriptures. 

I  am  happily  able  to  appeal  to  an  unim- 
peachable authority  In  starting  from  that 
belief.  Dr  Sanday,  the  eminent  Margaret 
Professor  at  Oxford,  has  told  us  In  his 
Bampton  Lectures,  pp.  392-393,  that  the  view 
of  the  Holy  Scriptures  which  was  prevalent 

1  A  translation  has  just  been  published  by  Messrs 
Williams  &  Norgate,  under  the  title  of  The  Scientific 
Study  of  the  Old  Testamenty  Its  Principal  Results  a7id 
their  Bearing  upon  Religious  Instruction  :  1910. 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW  3 

in  this  country  about  fifty  years  ago  was 
substantially  the  same  as  that  which  is 
exhibited  in  early  Christian  writers  about 
the  year  200  a.d.,  and  moreover  that,  in 
respect  to  the  Old  Testament,  it  was  the 
same  as  that  which  prevailed  in  the  time 
of  Christ ;  so  much  so  that  one  of  the 
chief  supports  on  which  it  rested  was  the 
extent  to  which  it  is  represented  in  the 
teaching  of  our  Lord  and  of  the  Apostles. 
Now,  quite  apart  from  the  Divine  authority 
which  is  thus  given  to  the  traditional  belief 
respecting  the  Scriptures,  I  would  submit  that 
as  a  mere  matter  of  evidence  that  is  a  fact  of 
momentous  importance.  At  the  time  of  our 
Lord,  and  consequently  before  it,  the  Jews 
regarded  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament, 
as  we  now  have  them,  as  containing  the 
inspired  record  of  their  history,  and  enter- 
tained the  same  general  view  of  that  history 
which  has  prevailed  in  their  own  Church  and 
the  Christian  Church  until  quite  modern 
times.  Now,  a  part  of  that  view  was  that 
the  ceremonial  as  well  as  the  moral  law  of 
the  Pentateuch,  the  portion  of  the  Penta- 
teuch now  called  ''  P,"  and  the  Book  of 
Deuteronomy,  proceeded  at  least  in  the  main 
from  Moses  himself.     But  the  critical  theory 


4  INTRODUCTION 

which  has  been  generally  accepted  of  late  is 
that  Deuteronomy  must  be  ascribed  to  about 
the  year  600  B.C.,  and  that  P,  or  at  least  a  great 
part  of  the  ceremonial  law,  was  drawn  up 
during  the  exile  about  500  B.C.,  so  that  we  are 
required  to  suppose  that  the  Jews  of  the 
generation  into  which  our  Lord  was  born 
had  somehow  been  persuaded  that  laws  and 
writings  which  were  only  some  400  years  old 
were  really  1000  years  older.  I  ask  whether 
that  is  conceivable  ?  Is  it  conceivable  that  an 
acute,  tenacious — to  use  the  description  of 
them  in  Deuteronomy — a  "  stiff-necked  "  race 
had  allowed  a  whole  code  of  laws,  and  the 
solemn  enforcement  of  those  laws  on  alleged 
Divine  authority,  to  have  been  imposed  on 
them  as  having  been  given  by  God  to  Moses, 
when  they  were  really  no  older  than  times 
which  had  been  in  the  memory  of  their 
great-great-grandfathers  ? 

That  single  consideration  seems  to  me  to 
render  the  prevalent  critical  theory  quite  in- 
conceivable, but  I  must  needs  carry  the 
same  consideration  further.  The  theory  is 
beyond  dispute  absolutely  contradictory  to 
the  view  of  the  Old  Testament  history 
which  is  represented  by  the  Old  Testament 
itself     It  is  the  view  that,  broadly  speaking. 


THE  LAW  AND  THE  PROPHETS         5 

the  prophetic  period  of  Israel's  religious 
development  is  anterior  to  the  legal  period. 
But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  effect  and 
the  intention  of  the  Old  Testament  is,  aoaln 
broadly  speaking,  to  teach  that  the  legalistic 
period  preceded  the  prophetic  period,  and 
that  the  work  of  the  prophets  was  in  great 
measure  to  recall  the  people  to  the  principles 
of  the  law  of  Moses  and  of  the  Patriarchs. 
Now  I  ask  once  more  with  confidence  whether 
it  is  conceivable,  on  the  ordinary  principles 
of  human  evidence,  that  any  nation,  and 
especially  the  Jewish  nation,  can  have  allowed 
their  whole  historic  tradition  to  be  falsified — 
falsified  not  merely  In  respect  to  some  details 
or  secondary  points,  but  in  respect  to  its  main 
course  and  its  cardinal  characteristics  ?  This 
theory  rests  upon  the  supposition  that  the 
final  compilers  of  the  Pentateuch  presented  to 
their  nation,  and  successively  imposed  upon 
it,  a  view  of  its  religious  development  which 
was  the  direct  opposite  of  the  facts.  Could 
this  have  been  possible,  or  is  it  reasonably 
probable  ? 

The  matter  may  be  considered  from 
another  and  an  even  more  solemn  point  of 
view.  The  account  given  of  the  course  of 
the  history  of  Israel  in  the  Pentateuch,  and 

A    2 


6  INTRODUCTION 

in  the  rest  of  the  Old  Testament,  created 
the  Jewish  reHgion,  that  ancient  and  solemn 
religion  under  which  our  Lord  Himself  lived, 
which  was  in  full  force  before  His  time, 
and  which  has  sustained  the  religious  life  of 
that  ofreat  and  sacred  race  down  to  the 
present  day.  But,  if  this  theory  be  true,  that 
religion  was  from  the  first  based  on  a 
deliberate  falsification  of  sacred  history  at 
its  very  centre.  It  has  been  a  charge 
advanced  by  some  unbelieving  writers  that 
religion  was  the  invention  of  priests.  If 
this  theory  could  be  established,  that  charge 
would  be  proved  in  the  case  of  the  sacred 
religion  from  which  Christianity  sprang. 
If  a  theory,  however  plausible  in  some 
respects,  brings  us  face  to  face  with  con- 
sequences of  this  character,  is  it  not  surpris- 
ing that  earnest  Christian  men,  like  many 
supporters  among  us  of  these  theories,  do 
not  feel  compelled  to  recognise  that  they 
must  have  been  pursuing  a  mistaken  track, 
and  that  there  must  be  something  wrong 
in  the  German  leadership  which  has  led 
them  into  so  strange  a  position  ? 

But  it  might  possibly  be  objected  to  part 
of  this  argument  that,  though  such  a  falsifi- 
cation of  tradition  is  inconceivable  in  modern 


ANTIQUITY  OF  WRITING  7 

times,  it  was  possible  in  days  when  it  was 
not  customary  to  keep  written  records.  But 
when  were  those  days  ?  Certainly  not 
within  the  period  of  history  which  extends 
from  the  days  of  Abraham  to  the  days  of 
our  Lord.  It  has  been  proved  of  late  that 
during  the  whole  of  that  period  writing  was 
in  common  use,  even  for  private  transactions, 
and  that  records  of  public  events  were 
carefully  preserved  in  the  civilisation  amidst 
which  the  people  of  Israel  lived.  I  venture 
to  doubt  if  the  theory  in  question  could 
possibly  have  arisen  if  the  facts  which  have 
come  to  light  in  our  generation  had  been 
known  in  the  days  of  the  scholars  with 
whom  it  originated.  An  extraordinary 
revolution  in  this  respect  has  come  to 
pass  within  our  own  generation.  Ten 
years  after  I  entered  Holy  Orders  the  first 
volume  of  The  Speaker  s  Commentary  was 
published,  in  which  the  introduction  to  the 
Pentateuch  was  written  by  a  very  eminent 
scholar  of  that  date,  Bishop  Harold  Browne  ; 
and  at  the  outset  of  his  introduction  he 
finds  it  necessary  to  discuss  the  question 
whether  the  art  of  writing  was  in  use  so  early 
as  Moses.  That  was  a  point  for  argument 
even    in    the    year    1870.      But   what  is  the 


8  INTRODUCTION 

case  now  ?  Every  scholar  has  on  his  table 
a  complete  code  of  laws,  comparable  in 
extent  and  character  to  one  of  the  books  of 
the  Pentateuch,  which  is  ascribed  to  King 
Hammurabi  or  Amraphel,  w^ho  lived  about 
2000  years  b.c,  and  who  was  probably  a 
contemporary  of  Abraham.  But  if  a  com- 
plete code  of  laws  could  be  inscribed  on  stone 
in  the  days  of  Abraham  or  near  his  time,  how 
many  centuries  before  him  must  not  the  art 
and  practice  of  writing  have  existed,  so  as 
to  have  attained  the  flexibility  and  the 
accuracy  required  for  such  a  purpose  ?  But, 
if  so,  it  is  at  least  a  perfectly  unwarrant- 
able supposition  that  written  memorials  of 
important  occurrences  did  not  exist  from 
Abraham  onwards,  particularly  of  events 
at  the  time  of  Moses  and  Joshua,  and 
throughout  the  whole  course  of  Israel's 
history  in  Palestine. 

But  we  are  told  that  the  Pentateuch  has 
been  analysed  into  some  half-dozen  docu- 
ments which  are  assigned  by  the  majority  of 
scholars  to  dates  which  vary  from  850  B.C. 
to  300  B.C.  Be  it  so.  Whatever  may  be 
my  own  reserves  on  that  subject,  it  is  quite 
unnecessary,  for  this  argument,  to  question  the 
literary  opinions  on  such  a  point  of  eminent 


ANGLO-SAXON  CHRONICLE  9 

critical  authorities.  The  question  I  ask  goes 
behind  that  literary  theory.  The  real  question 
is  whether  these  writers  of  the  year  800,  or 
any  later  date  you  please,  were  writing  on  the 
basis  of  mere  loose  popular  reminiscences,  or 
whether  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  they 
possessed  ancient  documents  and  memorials, 
which  had  been  handed  down  to  them  from 
former  generations.  Or,  to  put  the  matter 
in  another  form,  since  it  is  certainly  possible 
that  such  materials  existed,  since  it  is 
admitted  even  by  the  most  hypercritical 
scholars  that  at  all  events  ancient  ballads 
and  sayings  had  come  down  from  a  distant 
antiquity,  is  there  any  justification  for 
assuming  that  these  writers  were  not  able 
and  desirous  to  act  the  part  of  faithful 
historians  and  chroniclers,  so  as  to  hand 
on  to  us,  in  the  language  and  form  of  their 
own  day,  the  recorded  traditions  of  their 
nation  ? 

The  present  bishop  of  Bristol,  whose 
authority  as  a  historian  is  well  known,  has 
drawn  a  most  interesting  parallel  between  the 
ancient  Books  of  the  Scriptures  and  our  own 
Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle.  That  Chronicle, 
which  is  an  invaluable  record  of  early  English 
history  from  the  first  Saxon  times  in  England 


10  INTRODUCTION 

to  about  the  year  1 150,  was  first  collected  and 
brought  into  its  present  form  by  Plegmund, 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  about  the  year 
900,  and  was  continued  under  his  successors. 
No  doubt  he  brought  the  ancient  records  into 
a  somewhat  new  form,  and  their  style  varied 
as  time  went  forward  ;  but  thus  collected, 
thus  edited,  thus  perhaps  varied  in  style, 
they  are  treated  by  all  historians  as  a  faithful 
record  of  the  many  centuries  of  our  history 
to  which  they  relate.  Similarly  with  the 
Jewish  records,  with  the  Pentateuch,  as  well 
as  with  the  later  historical  books,  criticism 
is  no  doubt  justified  in  its  view  that,  in 
speaking  of  the  Books  of  Moses,  we  are  not 
to  be  supposed  to  imply  that  they  were 
entirely  written  by  him,  any  more  than  the 
Psalms  of  David  are  all  to  be  ascribed  to 
David,  or  the  Proverbs  of  Solomon  entirely 
to  Solomon.  It  is  a  fair,  and  a  very  interest- 
ing, subject  of  critical  enquiry  how  much  of 
the  Pentateuch  can  be  directly  ascribed  to 
Moses  himself,  and  how  far  it  has  been 
compiled  from  other  documents.  But  that 
does  not  determine  the  question,  which  is 
the  main  question,  whether  those  documents 
contained  true  history,  and  whether,  in  sub- 
stance, the  view  which  the  Pentateuch,  as  a 


INSPIRATION  11 

whole,  presents  of  the  history  of  the  people  of 
Israel  up  to  the  time  of  the  conquest  of 
Canaan  is  a  true  history.  That  which  the  old 
view  of  the  Jews,  the  traditional  view  of  both 
Jews  and  Christians,  asserted  is,  that  it  is  true 
history.  It  asserted  also,  and  it  clings 
tenaciously  to  the  belief,  that  the  compilation 
was  made  under  the  superintending  influence 
of  the  Spirit  of  God,  Who,  without  super- 
seding all  the  characteristics  of  human 
agency,  guided  the  writers  to  the  essence  of 
the  history,  gave  them  the  prophetic  instinct 
which  led  them  to  trace  and  disentangle, 
with  so  sure  a  hand,  the  history  of  the 
Children  of  Abraham  and  Israel  from  the 
mass  of  the  confused  life  around  them  ;  until 
Saint  Matthew  was  also  divinely  guided  to 
announce  the  fulfilment  of  the  history  of 
2000  years  by  commencing  his  Gospel  with 
the  announcement,  *'  The  book  of  the 
generation  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  son  of 
David,  the  son  of  Abraham." 

Let  it  be  added  that  every  discovery  of 
the  last  few  years  has  either  given  greater 
probability  to  the  traditional  view  or  has 
removed  difficulties  from  it,  like  the  grand 
discovery  of  the  antiquity  of  writing.  I 
cannot  but  mention  one.     It  has  been  con- 


12  INTRODUCTION 

eluded  from  the  discovery  of  the  Book  of 
the  Law  under  Josiah  that  the  Book  of 
Deuteronomy,  to  which  that  description  is 
supposed  to  refer,  was  therefore  written 
about  that  time.  But  it  was  recently 
announced  by  Professor  Naville  that  a  record 
of  Thothmes  III.,  1500  years  b.c,  has  been 
discovered,  showing  that,  during  structural 
alterations  in  the  Temple  of  Denderah,  he 
had  found  in  a  brick  wall  the  great  Rule  of  the 
Temple,  or  in  other  words  its  Ceremonial 
Law  ;  so  that  there  is  a  distinctly  parallel  case 
to  the  discovery  of  the  Book  of  the  Law  of 
the  Jewish  Temple,  in  its  reparation  under 
Josiah  ;^  much  in  the  same  way,  it  may  be 
supposed,  as  we,  in  the  present  day,  place 
in  the  foundation  stones  of  our  buildings 
documents  of  contemporary  date.  The 
possibility  is  thus  proved,  by  independent 
historical  fact,  that  the  Book  of  the  Law 
found  in  Josiah's  time  was  an  ancient,  and 
not  a  recent,  book. 

I  have  no  hesitation,  therefore,  in  offering 

1  See  The  Discovery  of  the  Book  of  the  Law  under 
King  Josiah  ;  an  Egyptian  Interpretation  of  the  Biblical 
Account^  by  E.  Naville,  Hon.  D.C.L.,  &c.  ;  translated 
by  M.  L.  M'Clure,  with  an  Introduction  by  Professor 
Sayce:  S.P.C.K.,  191 1. 


PRINCIPLES  AT  ISSUE  13 

a  broad  and  confident  opposition  on  principle 
to  the  critical  views  which  have  been 
in  favour  of  late ;  not  from  the  slight- 
est hostility  to  criticism  in  itself,  but 
because  I  am  deeply  convinced  that 
those  views  rest  on  a  totally  mistaken, 
and  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  pre- 
posterous application  of  criticism.  I  doubt 
not  that  criticism  will  in  the  end  render  not 
less  service  to  the  understanding  of  the  Old 
Testament  than  to  that  of  the  New,  as  in 
many  respects  it  has  already  done,  but  a 
criticism  which,  in  the  phrase  of  Dillmann 
(one  of  the  greatest  of  Old  Testament 
critics),  turns  the  whole  Old  Testament 
topsy-turvy:  '*  Alles  auf  den  Kopf  stellt," 
is  not  to  be  regarded  as  an  established 
hypothesis.  Dillmann  also  said  of  an  English 
book  which  directly  opposed  these  theories, 
Professor  Robertson's  Baird  Lectures,  that 
it  **hits  the  nail  on  the  head,"  and  until  that 
contention  is  answered,  the  old  belief  holds 
its  ground. 

I  must  add  that  spiritual  principles  and 
truths  of  the  most  vital  consequence  are 
involved  in  the  conflict  between  these  two 
theories — that  which  is  presented  as  the 
critical    theory    on    the   one    side,    and    the 


14  INTRODUCTION 

theory  of  the  Bible  on  the  other.  The 
narrative  of  the  Bible  represents  God  Him- 
self as  the  great  Author  and  Inspirer  of  His 
own  revelation,  not  leaving  men  gradually  to 
find  Him  out,  as  they  would  discover  prin- 
ciples of  science,  or  of  ethics,  or  of  theology, 
but  as  Himself  finding  them  out,  entering 
personally  into  relations  of  covenant  with 
them  at  the  very  outset  of  the  revelation  in 
the  person  of  Abraham,  and  leading  them  on 
by  successive  words,  prophecies,  rebukes, 
deliverances,  to  know  Him  better,  to  trust 
and  to  follow  Him.  The  other  view  repre- 
sents men  as  struggling  for  centuries  with 
crude  thoughts  of  God,  without  any  sure, 
clear,  or  authoritative  revelation  from  Him. 
It  is  all  the  difference  between  a  natural  evolu- 
tion and  a  positive  supernatural  education. 

The  language  for  instance,  which  is  com- 
mon under  the  new  theory  respecting  the 
imperfect  morality  of  the  Old  Testament  mis- 
states the  question.  There  is,  indeed,  an 
imperfect  morality  in  the  men  of  the  Old 
Testament,  but  there  is  nothing  imperfect  in 
God's  messages  to  them,  in  His  guidance  of 
them,  in  His  education  of  them.  Under  the 
old  belief  of  the  Church  we  see  God  from  the 
first,  wdth  our  first  parents,  with  Noah,  with 


SUCCESSIVE  REVELATIONS  15 

Abraham,  with  Moses,  with  the  priests  and 
the  prophets,  and  we  hear  His  voice  in  distinct, 
positive,  definite  words,  appealing  to  their 
consciences,  and,  in  the  order  and  the  method 
recorded  and  described,  opening  their  minds 
and  hearts  and  evoking  their  faith  and 
love.^  It  was  by  those  successive  revelations, 
as  described  in  the  Bible,  in  that  order, 
that  Apostles  like  St  Paul  and  St  Peter, 
following  our  Lord  Himself,  realised  the 
hand,  the  arm,  and  the  voice  of  God.  If 
they  were  wrong  in  their  conceptions  of  the 
order  of  that  revelation,  their  authority  as 
spiritual  teachers  is  dangerously,  if  not 
fatally,  shaken.  But  I  submit  that  we  have 
abundant  reason,  in  the  best  criticism  and  in 
the  most  striking  discoveries  of  our  day,  for 
adhering  firmly  to  the  old  belief,  and  for 
trusting  the  Bible's  own  account  of  the 
history  of  God's  people ; — for  believing,  in 
short,  in  the  words  of  the  psalm, — ''  In  the 
covenant  that  He  made  with  Abraham,  and 
the  oath  that  He  sware  unto  Isaac,  and 
appointed  the  same  unto  Jacob  for  a  law,  and 
to  Israel  for  an  everlasting  testament." 

1   See  Dr  A.  B.  Davidson's  Old  Testament  Prophecy^ 
Lecture  II.,  p.  20. 


16  INTRODUCTION 

In  this  belief,  an  endeavour  is  made  in  the 
following  lectures  to  enter  into  the  real 
meaning  of  Prophecy,  in  the  Old  and  New 
Testament,  in  accordance  with  the  inspired 
teaching  of  the  Scriptures  ;  and  I  shall  be 
thankful  if  they  contribute  in  any  degree  to 
vindicate  the  ancient  belief  of  the  Jewish  and 
Christian  Church,  and  to  show,  in  a  memor- 
able phrase,  that  ''it  is  not  after  all  so 
certain  that  there  is  nothing  in  it." 

Canterbury,  December  1910. 

H.  Wace. 


I 

THE  PROPHETIC  CHARACTER  OF 
THE  JEWISH  AND  CHRIS- 
TIAN   RELIGIONS 

"  Whatsoever  things  were  written  aforetime  were  written 
for  our  learning  ;  that  we,  through  patience  and  comfort  of 
the  Scriptures,  might  have  hope."— ROM.  xv.  4. 

It  is  specially  Instructive  that  one  of  the 
Collects  of  the  Advent  season  Is  a  prayer  for 
the  due  use  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Having 
regard  to  the  Epistle  for  the  same  Sunday, 
it  cannot  be  doubted  that  this  Is  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  season  is  pre-eminently  marked 
by  prophetic  associations.  It  reminds  us  of 
the  most  Important  of  all  prophecies  which 
still  remain  to  be  fulfilled — that  of  the  second 
Advent  of  our  Lord.  There  is  not,  perhaps, 
a  greater  Instance  of  the  essentially  super- 
natural and  miraculous  character  of  the 
Christian  revelation  than  the  fact  that  one 
of    the     very     corner-stones    of    our    faith 

17  B 


18  PROPHECY  IN  THE  CREED 

respecting  the  future,  which  we  reassert 
whenever  we  recite  the  Apostle's  Creed,  is  a 
prophecy  respecting  an  event  wholly  out  of 
the  range  of  our  natural  faculties,  and  of  the 
most  distinct  and  definite  character.  It  is  a 
prophecy  that  our  Lord  will  return  in  glory 
and  power  to  judge  the  quick  and  the  dead. 
The  Christian  life  depends  no  less  on  that 
prediction  respecting  the  future,  than  upon 
the  facts  of  our  Lord's  life  when  He  was 
upon  earth.  He  and  His  Apostles  have 
assured  us  that  He  will  so  come  again,  in 
like  manner  as  He  was  seen  to  go  into 
heaven,  in  order  to  assert  in  a  final  judg- 
ment the  truths  and  the  laws  He  has  given 
us  for  our  guidance ;  and  that  Judgment 
may  be  regarded  as  the  effective  sanction  of 
the  Christian  law.  But  this  is  no  surmise 
of  our  natural  faculties  ;  no  ordinary  reason- 
ing could  suffice  to  give  it  validity,  as  a  great 
truth  on  which  our  action  must  be  founded. 
It  is  a  simple  prediction  of  plain  matter  of 
fact,  resting  solely  upon  the  word  and 
promise  of  our  Lord  Himself  and  His 
Apostles. 

The  case,  as  we  are  reminded  throughout 
the  Advent  season,  is  precisely  similar  to 
that   of   our    Lord's    first    coming.       That 


THE  SECOxND  ADVENT  19 

coming  had  similarly  been  predicted  and 
looked  forward  to,  though,  from  the  nature 
of  the  case,  with  less  definiteness  than  the 
second  coming  can  be  foreseen.  But  here 
also  certain  assurances  had  been  given 
which  were  sufficiently  plain  in  their  broad 
outlines  ;  and  as  these  were  exactly  fulfilled 
in  the  first  coming  of  our  Lord,  so  are  we 
encouraged  to  believe  that  the  predictions  of 
His  second  coming  will  be  similarly  fulfilled. 
Such  is  the  practical  argument  of  St  Paul  in 
the  fifteenth  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans,  in  assuring  us  that  "whatsoever 
things  were  written  aforetime  were  written 
for  our  learning  ;  that  we,  through  patience 
and  comfort  of  the  Scriptures,  might  have 
hope."  He  is  dealing  with  what  was  the 
great  difficulty  to  the  Jews  of  his  time — 
namely,  the  admission  of  the  Gentiles  to  all 
the  privileges  of  the  chosen  people  of  God  ; 
and  he  is  supporting  himself  and  them, 
amidst  the  opposition  and  misunderstanding 
they  had  to  encounter,  by  reminding  them 
that  this  admission  had  been  distinctly 
predicted  in  their  Scriptures,  and  that  the 
wonderful  development  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  which  they  were  witnessing  was  thus, 
beyond   all    doubt,    in    harmony    with    the 


20  APOSTOLIC  PROPHECY 

Divine  will  and  purpose.  Without  this 
evidence  from  previous  prophecy,  the  diffi- 
culty of  breaking  through  the  Inveterate 
prejudice  of  the  Jews  of  the  Apostle's  time 
might,  indeed,  have  been  well-nigh  insuper- 
able ;  and  accordingly  almost  every  argu- 
ment addressed  by  the  Apostles  to  the  Jews 
at  the  foundation  of  the  Christian  Church  is 
based  upon  prophecy  and  prophetic  history. 
The  memorable  argument  of  St  Stephen, 
which  formed  the  very  basis  of  St  Paul's 
subsequent  thought,  simply  recounts  those 
facts  of  past  Jewish  history  and  prophecy 
which  bore  upon  the  charge  against  him, 
with  the  view  of  showing  that  they  involved 
the  principles  which  he  was  proclaiming. 
The  essence  of  the  early  Christian  argument 
is  thus  an  argument  from  prophecy,  and  it  is 
upon  the  fulfilment  of  that  prophecy  that  the 
Apostles  took  their  stand  in  appealing  to 
their  own  countrymen. 

An  arcfument  which  held  this  momentous 
place  at  the  foundation  of  the  Christian 
Church  can  never  be  otherwise  than  of  the 
highest  importance  to  us,  and  it  is  well  to 
endeavour,  from  time  to  time,  to  refresh  our 
apprehension  of  its  overwhelming  force.  It 
may  be  of  advantage  at  the  outset  to  observe 


THE  MESSIAH  21 

that  it  is  in  great  measure  independent  of 
discussions  respecting  the  exact  interpreta- 
tion and  appHcability  of  particular  texts. 
There  is  one  fact  which,  taken  by  itself,  is 
sufficient  to  establish  and  illustrate  the 
prophetic  character  of  the  Old  Testament, 
and  which  was  the  main  element  in  the 
preaching  of  the  Apostles.  This  is  the 
undoubted  fact,  that  when  the  Apostles 
preached  to  the  Jews  that  Jesus  was  the 
Christ,  every  Jew  knew  sufficiently  what  the 
word  ''Christ,"  or  ''Messiah,"  meant.  The 
Apostles  did  not  go  to  the  Jews  to  tell  them 
that  our  Lord  had  come  to  assume  new 
functions  of  which  they  had  no  conception  ; 
but  that  He  had  come  in  a  character,  and 
had  assumed  an  office,  of  the  nature  of  which 
they  were  well  aware,  and  for  the  realisation 
of  which  they  were  looking  forward  with  the 
utmost  eagerness.  Our  Lord's  position 
differs  essentially,  in  this  respect,  from  that 
of  all  other  great  religious  leaders,  such,  for 
example,  as  the  Buddha,  or  Mahomet. 
They  created  their  own  positions.  The 
idea  of  the  Buddha  was  initiated  by  Sakya 
Muni  ;  and  although  Mahomet's  idea  of  his 
office  was  in  some  degree  due  to  Jewish 
tradition,  still,  in  its  specific  character,  it  is 

B    2 


22  THE  SEFPUAGINT 

the  result  of  his  own  action.  But  the  idea 
of  the  Messiah,  with  the  conception  of  the 
Messianic  office,  existed,  beyond  all  question, 
long  before  our  Lord  came ;  and  its  sole 
ultimate  source  was  the  Scriptures  of  the 
Old  Testament.  The  origin  of  the  idea  is 
to  be  found  nowhere  else  ;  but  there,  as  a 
plain  and  broad  matter  of  fact,  it  exists  ;  and 
it  had  been  consolidated  into  a  great  living 
ideal  in  the  minds  of  men  who  derived  their 
religious  beliefs  from  the  Old  Testament, 
and  from  the  Old  Testament  alone. 

For  the  purpose  of  this  aspect  of  the 
argument  there  is  no  necessity  to  enter  into 
critical  questions,  as  to  the  date  of  the 
various  parts  of  Isaiah's  prophecies,  for 
example,  or  of  the  Book  of  Daniel.  Two 
facts  alone  are  sufficient  to  enable  us  to 
establish  the  prophetic  character  of  this 
great  conception  —  one,  the  fact  of  the 
existence  of  the  whole  Old  Testament  in  at 
least  the  third  century  before  Christ  ;  so  that 
translations  of  great  parts  of  it  were  com- 
pleted and  in  use  among  Jews  in  various 
parts  of  the  ancient  world  at  that  date ;  the 
other,  the  fact  of  the  expectation  of  the 
Messiah  having  been  produced  by  it.  That 
the  Septuagint  translation  began  to  be  pro- 


MESSIANIC  HOPES  23 

duced  In  the  third  century  and  was  completed 
in  the  second  is  beyond  controversy  ;  and 
we  have  in  our  hands  not  less  conclusive 
evidence  of  the  interpretation  which  was 
placed  by  Jews,  before  the  birth  of  our  Lord, 
upon  the  general  tenour  of  these  sacred 
Scriptures.  Out  of  them,  long  before  His 
advent,  had  arisen  a  whole  literature  of 
Messianic  expectations,  and  the  very  air  of 
Jewish  thought  was  full  of  anticipations  of 
His  coming. 

This  fact  is  so  important  that  it  is  no 
wonder  some  rationalistic  critics  have 
endeavoured  to  dispute  it.  If  it  could  be 
shown  that  the  belief  in  a  coming  Messiah 
was  an  after-thought  of  the  Christian 
Church,  great  suspicion  would  justly  be 
thrown  on  the  interpretation  of  the 
Messianic  prophecies.  It  would  be  easy 
to  urge  that  the  meaning  assigned  to  them 
by  Christian  divines  is  not  one  v/hich  would 
naturally  have  been  suggested  by  them,  but 
has  been  forced  into  them  in  the  interests  of 
the  Christian  argument.  It  is  therefore 
deserving  of  particular  notice  that  these 
attempts  to  dispute  the  existence,  before  the 
time  of  our  Lord,  of  Messianic  hopes  and 
Messianic    interpretations    of  prophecy   are 


24  MESSIANIC  HOPES 

rejected  by  the  writer — himself  sufficiently 
rationalistic  in  tendency — who  is  recognised 
among  scholars  of  all  schools  as  the  greatest 
living  authority  on  the  circumstances  of  our 
Lord's  time — I  mean  Dr  Schiirer,  the  author 
of  the  great  work  on  the  history  of  the 
Jewish  people  in  the  time  of  our  Lord,  of 
which  the  fourth  edition  was  completed  in 
1909.  He  says  (vol.  ii.,  p.  589)  that  '*in 
reality  the  Messianic  idea  had  never  entirely 
died  out,  at  least  not  in  its  more  general 
form,  as  the  hope  for  a  better  future  for  the 
people.  In  any  case,  in  the  last  centuries 
before  Christ,  and  particularly  in  the  time  of 
Christ,  it  became  again  very  active,  as 
indeed  is  shown  by  the  course  of  the  Gospel 
history.  Without  Jesus  doing  anything  for 
its  revival,  it  appears  as  in  full  life  among 
the  people.  Moreover,  in  the  last  centuries 
before  Christ  it  appears,  as  a  rule,  not  only 
in  its  general  form  as  a  hope  for  a  better 
future  for  the  people,  but  specifically  as  a 
hope  for  a  Messianic  King."  From  the 
interesting  historical  sketch  in  which  he 
justifies  this  statement  it  will  be  sufficient 
here  to  quote  two  references.  He  says 
(p.  593)  that  ''  the  stream  of  Messianic  pre- 
diction is  poured  forth  in  rich  fullness  in  the 


PSALMS  OF  SOLOMON  25 

oldest  Jewish  Sibylline  verses,  which  appeared 
about  the  year  140  B.C."  But  in  the  Psalter 
of  Solomon,  which  he  assigns  to  the  time  of 
Pompey  (63-48  B.C.)  he  says  (p.  597)  that 
''the  form  of  the  Messianic  King  appears 
in  fuller  colours  and  in  sharper  outlines. 
These  psalms  are  particularly  instructive 
in  one  point — namely,  that  the  author 
emphasises  not  only  that  God  Himself  is 
Israel's  King,  but  also  that  the  kingdom  of 
the  House  of  David  will  not  cease  before 
God.  ...  He  hopes  that  God  will  raise  up 
a  King  out  of  David's  House,  who  will 
reign  over  Israel,  annihilate  his  enemies,  and 
purify  Jerusalem  from  the  heathen.  .  .  . 
Apparently  what  is  expected  by  the  author 
is  not,  in  a  general  sense.  God-fearing  Kings 
from  the  House  of  David,  but  one  unique 
King — the  Messias,  endowed  by  God  with 
wonderful  powers,  who  is  holy  and  pure  from 
sin,  whom  God  has  made  mighty  and  wise 
by  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  who  consequently 
will  smite  His  enemies,  not  with  external 
weapons,  but  with  the  word  of  His 
mouth." 

This  evidence  affords  a  valuable  confirma- 
tion, in  the  present  day,  of  the  fact  that  the 
appeal  of  the  Apostles,   as  recorded  in  the 


26  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

Acts  of  the  Apostles,  and  of  the  Evangelists 
in  their  references  to  prophecy,  is  perfectly- 
true  to  the  ideas  of  their  contemporaries. 
But  the  main  consideration  which  arises 
upon  such  facts  is  that  they  appear  to  afford 
conclusive  proof  of  the  reality  of  Messianic 
prediction  in  the  Old  Testament.  If  the 
prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament  were  not 
Messianic,  how  came  they  to  give  rise, 
before  the  Messiah  had  come,  to  an  expecta- 
tion of  His  coming,  and  to  a  general  appre- 
hension of  His  office  in  its  broad  features? 
We  may  venture,  in  fact,  to  put  the  matter 
in  this  form — that  our  Lord  came,  not  to 
create  a  new  office,  but  to  fill  one  which  had 
been  already  created,  and  which  was  vacant. 
Thoughtful  Jews  looked  forward  to  the 
coming  of  a  perfect  Prophet,  Priest,  and 
King,  and  the  office  of  the  first  preachers  of 
the  Gospel  was  to  show  that  our  Lord's 
character  answered,  and  more  than  answered, 
to  these  lineaments.  In  view  of  this  broad 
fact,  the  general  Messianic  character  of  the 
Old  Testament  becomes  independent  of  con- 
troversial details.  One  great  central  reality 
did,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  emerge,  by  the 
natural  influence  of  the  Old  Testament 
Scriptures,    and    that    reality    is    the   great 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  27 

character  and  office  which  our  Lord  claimed 
to  fulfil. 

This  consideration  becomes  the  more  im- 
pressive when  we  bear  in  mind  the  continuous 
development  of  this  conception.  It  does  not 
depend  upon  a  few  specific  passages,  or 
even  upon  one  or  two  authors,  but  is,  so  to 
say,  the  total  result  of  a  long  and  varied 
national  literature.  The  Old  Testament  is 
the  work  of  many  different  authors,  w^ho 
wrote  in  different  ages^'and  in  different  places. 
The  lapse  of  time  between  Moses  and 
Malachi  is  nearly  a  thousand  years,  or 
about  the  same  period  which  separates  us 
from  Saxon  times  ;  and  the  books  of  the 
Bible  arise  gradually  in  the  course  of  this 
long  and  varied  succession  of  centuries. 
What  an  extraordinary  thing  it  would  seem 
to  us  if  we  had  a  national  literature  bepfin- 
ning  with  King  Alfred,  extending  through 
Norman,  Plantagenet,  and  Tudor  times,  all 
of  which  exhibited  a  general  unity  in  the 
conception  it  presented  of  the  destinies  of 
our  nation,  and  w^hich  pointed  with  more 
and  more  clearness  to  the  appearance  of  a 
certain  personage,  with  specific  powers  and 
offices,  about  our  own  time !  But  this,  as 
is   proved,    not    only  by   Christian,   but    by 


28  EPISTLE  TO  THE  HEBREWS 

Jewish  testimony,  is  the  case  with  the  Scrip- 
tures. So  the  late  Bishop  of  Durham,  Dr 
Westcott,  in  a  remarkable  discussion,  in  his 
edition  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  on 
the  use  of  the  Old  Testament  in  that  Epistle, 
observes  (p.  480)  that  generally  it  may  be 
said  ''  that  Christ  and  the  Christian  dispensa- 
tion are  regarded  in  it  as  the  one  end  to 
which  the  Old  Testament  points,  and  in 
which  it  finds  its  complete  accomplishment." 
That  Epistle,  as  he  shows,  reviews  with 
singular  comprehensiveness  the  record  of 
the  revelation  of  the  Old  Testament,  from 
Abraham  to  the  later  prophets,  depicts  by 
means  of  that  record  the  personal  Messiah 
with  singular  completeness  of  portraiture, 
and  shows  that  every  stage  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment history  affords  some  anticipation  of 
Him  (p.  489).  So  when  St  Stephen  begins 
his  defence  to  the  Jewish  rulers,  he  goes 
back  to  the  records  of  the  patriarch  Abraham, 
and  traces  through  him,  and  through  Moses, 
David,  and  the  prophets,  the  thread  of  pre- 
diction, the  prophecy  of  national  destiny,  to 
which  his  people  clung.  His  argument 
would  have  had  no  weight  had  he  not  been 
appealing  to  promises  which  were  fully 
admitted    by    those    whom    he    addressed. 


CONTINUOUS  PROPHECY  29 

Their  position,  like  his,  was  based  on  the 
conviction,  which  their  history  and  their 
prophets  had  wrought  in  them,  that  from 
first  to  last  they  were  the  subjects  of  a 
special  Divine  dispensation,  which  assured 
them  of  a  great  office  in  the  economy  of  the 
world,  and  of  the  advent  of  a  great  prophet 
like  unto  Moses,  who  would  be  their  leader 
in  the  fulfilment  of  this  destiny.  Ancient 
patriarchal  records,  prophecies,  psalms,  na- 
tional troubles  and  deliverances,  all  pointed  to 
this  great  central  promise,  and  were  felt  to 
possess  by  virtue  of  it  an  indissoluble  unity. 
This,  perhaps,  is  the  greatest  marvel  of  Old 
Testament  prophecy.  A  single  prediction, 
such  as  Isa.  liii.,  is  wonderful  enough.  But 
ten  centuries  of  continuous  prophecy,  often 
unconscious  —  ten  centuries  of  literature, 
springing  from  different  hands  in  different 
countries  and  ages,  all  converging,  as  un- 
questionable matter  of  fact,  in  one  central 
prediction,  that  of  the  Messiah — this  is  a 
prophecy  which  bespeaks  the  continuous 
action  and  inspiration  of  One,  with  whom 
one  day  is  as  a  thousand  years,  and  a 
thousand  years  as  one  day. 

Nor,  although  this  great  fact  constitutes 
the  chief  point  in  the  predictive  character  of 


30  SPECIFIC  PREDICTIONS 

the  Old  Testament,  must  we  forget  that, 
apart  again  from  controversial  details,  it  is 
marked  throughout  by  specific  predictions 
of  definite  facts.  Long  before  it  could  have 
occurred  to  any  natural  observation  that 
the  Jews  were  destined  to  play  that  moment- 
ous part  in  the  subsequent  history  of  the 
world,  which  we  know  now  they  have  played 
and  are  still  fulfilling,  the  sacred  historian,  in 
the  Book  of  Genesis,  picks  out  the  thread 
of  the  Patriarchal  history  from  the  mass  of 
the  confused  drama  which  the  world  pre- 
sented ;  and  from  the  time  when  Abraham 
appears  in  the  narrative  of  that  book,  every- 
thing, throughout  the  Scriptures,  is  narrated 
in  relation  to,  and  in  harmony  with,  the 
history  of  his  race.  The  Jews  might  be 
crushed  by  the  great  Assyrian,  or  Babylonian, 
or  Persian  monarchies.  It  makes  no  differ- 
ence to  the  point  of  view  from  which  the 
prophetic  historians  survey  the  scene.  They 
are  inspired  by  an  unwavering  conviction 
that  the  stream  of  their  national  life  is  con- 
tinuous and  can  never  be  broken,  and  that 
the  destinies  of  all  those  mighty  nations  are 
of  comparatively  transient  interest  compared 
with  their  own.  In  spite  of  their  apparent 
dissolution  as  a  nation,  we  know  how  com- 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DAVID  31 

pletely  those  hopes  have  been  justified,  and 
that  while  all  the  glory  of  man,  by  which 
they  were  surrounded  at  Nineveh  or  Babylon, 
has  passed  away  like  a  dream,  the  Word  of 
the  Lord,  spoken  by  apparently  insignificant 
prophets,  has  endured  for  ever.  Nor  is  it 
simply  in  the  definite  prediction  of  the 
importance  of  their  race  to  the  history  of 
the  world  that  prophecy  is  of  this  specific 
character.  Through  the  darkest  ages,  when 
the  seed  of  David  had  apparently  disappeared, 
as  the  royal  blood  of  many  an  ancient 
dynasty  has  been  submerged  in  history,  did 
the  prophets  persistently  recall  the  old 
promises  which  had  been  made  to  David's 
house,  and  predict  that  the  great  king  of 
their  nation  should  be  born  of  David's  line. 
There  can  surely  be  no  question  that  these 
definite  and  detailed  promises  have  received 
in  the  coming  of  our  Lord,  and  in  the 
momentous  office  which,  whether  men  will 
hear  or  whether  they  will  forbear.  He  holds 
towards  the  human  race,  a  specific  fulfilment 
of  the  most  conspicuous  and  marvellous 
character.  A  great  Ruler  and  Law-giver, 
Prophet,  and  Priest  of  the  seed  of  David 
is  now  the  most  potent  power  in  the  history 
af  the  world,   and   all    thoughtful  eyes  are 


32  PROPHECY  FULFILLED 

turned  on   His  ever-growing   influence   and 
kingdom. 

If,  then,  we  find  that  the  Scriptures  have 
predicted,  in  long  past  ages,  the  main  course 
and  current  of  human  affairs ;  that  they 
have  indicated  where  the  centre  of  all  human 
history  would  be  found  to  lie ;  that  they 
have  designated,  out  of  all  the  families  of 
the  earth,  not  merely  the  race,  but  the 
specific  house,  from  which  the  King  should 
arise  who  should  be  ''a  light  to  lighten  the 
Gentiles "  ;  if  they  have  thus  in  the  past 
been,  in  the  words  of  St  Peter,  "  as  a  lamp 
shining  in  a  dark  place,  until  the  day  dawn 
and  the  day-star  arise  in  our  hearts,"  what 
comfort  and  patience  ought  we  not  to  derive 
from  them  in  their  assurances  respecting 
those  blessed  realities  to  which  they  point 
us  in  the  future!  If  St  Paul,  in  the  diffi- 
culties of  his  time,  when  the  fulfilment  of 
the  promises  made  to  his  people  was  only 
dawning  on  his  vision,  could  base  his  hope 
upon  those  Scriptures,  what  trust  and  what 
assurance  ought  we  not  to  derive  from  them 
in  our  spiritual  life  I  With  what  reverence 
ought  not  all  their  intimations  respecting 
the  future,  as  well  as  the  past  and  the 
present,    to    be    received ;    and    with    what 


FUTURE  HOPE  33 

thankfulness  should  we  not  accept  their 
guidance  respecting  our  duties  here  and 
our  destinies  hereafter  !  In  particular,  what 
"comfort  and  patience"  ought  we  not  to 
learn  from  them  with  respect  to  those  solemn 
and  blessed  realities  which  are  associated 
with  the  promise  of  our  Lord's  second 
coming !  We  should  surely  be  encouraged 
to  live  with  the  deepest  confidence  and  hope 
in  the  prospect  of  His  appearing  hereafter  as 
our  Lord  and  Saviour,  and  at  the  same 
time  ''to  pass  the  time  of  our  sojourning 
here  in  fear,"  in  the  belief  that  He  will  then 
appear  also  as  our  Judge.  In  this  faith  in 
His  prophetic  word,  we  shall  strive  so  to 
abide  in  Him,  ''that  when  He  shall  appear 
we  may  have  confidence,  and  not  be  ashamed 
before  Him  at  His  coming." 


II 


THE  GENERAL  CHARACTER  OF 
OLD  TESTAMENT  PROPHECY 

"  He  said,  Men,  brethren,  and  fathers,  hearken  :  the 
God  of  Glory  appeared  unto  our  father  Abraham,  when  he 
dwelt  in  Mesopotamia." — Acts  vii.  2. 

The  speech  of  St  Stephen  is  one  of  the  most 
momentous  documents  in  the  Scriptures  of 
the  New  Testament  and  in  the  early  history 
of  the  Church.  It  was  spoken  by  him  at 
the  time  when  the  full  scope  of  the  Gospel 
was  about  to  be  realised,  and  when  the 
Church  was,  consequently,  on  the  point  of 
taking  a  new  departure ;  and  it  was  delivered 
in  circumstances  of  peculiar  solemnity  and 
authority.  The  fact  was  beginning  to  be 
clearly  recognised  that  the  Gospel  was  inde- 
pendent of  the  Mosaic  ordinances  and  ritual. 
Stephen's  enemies  understood  him  to  say 
that  "Jesus  of  Nazareth  shall  destroy  this 
place,  and  shall  change  the  customs  which 

S4 


ST  STEPHEN'S  SPEECH  35 

Moses  delivered  unto  us."     How  much  truth 
there  was  in   that  charge  St  Stephen  was 
called  upon  to  explain  and  to  justify,  and  his 
endeavour  to  do  so  cost  him  his  life.     His 
martyrdom,  at  the  close  of  his  speech,  was 
witnessed    by    St    Paul,    at   whose   feet   the 
witnesses,  by  whom  he  was  stoned,  laid  down 
their  clothes  ;  and  there  can  be  no  reasonable 
doubt  that  in  the  account  of  the  speech  and 
of  the  scene,  which  we  have  from  the  pen  of 
St  Luke,  we  have  the  very  reminiscences  of 
St  Paul  himself.     We  are  specially  assured 
of  the  supernatural  spirit  in  which  St  Stephen 
spoke.     At  the  commencement  of  his  speech  : 
*' All  that  sat  in  the  council,  looking  stead- 
fastly on  him,  saw  his  face  as  it  had  been 
the  face  of  an  angel,"  and  at  its  conclusion  : 
*'  Being  full  of  the   Holy  Ghost,  he  looked 
up   steadfastly    into    heaven,    and    saw   the 
glory  of  God,   and   Jesus    standing    on   the 
right  hand  of  God."     The  speech,  therefore, 
must  be  taken  as  an  expression,  not  only  of 
the  highest   Christian    thought,   but    of  in- 
spired Christian  thought,  at  this  crisis  of  the 
history  of  the  Church,  and  as  stamped,  in  a 
special    manner,    with    the    sanction    of  the 
Saviour  Himself.     No  wonder  that  it  became 
the  seed  from  which  the  whole  thought  of  St 


36      TRUTH  OF  SCRIPTURE  HISTORY 

Paul  started,  and  that  it  thus  proved  to  be 
the  point  of  departure  of  Gentile  Christianity. 
Now,  apart  from  the  particular  question 
then  at  issue,  the  general  character  of  the 
argument  in  such  a  speech  cannot  but  be  of 
profound  instruction.  We  see  there  what 
were  the  kind  of  arguments  on  which  an 
inspired  man  relied  when  he  had  to  justify, 
before  representatives  of  the  Old  Law,  the 
cardinal  principles  of  the  New  Dispensation. 
We  may  observe,  in  the  first  place,  and  in 
passing,  as  a  matter  of  great  interest  in 
relation  to  current  controversies  respecting 
the  Old  Testament,  that  speaking  on  the 
verge  of  heaven,  and  with  the  light  of  it 
shining  upon  his  brow,  St  Stephen  builds 
his  whole  case  on  the  substantial  truth  of 
that  account  of  the  history  of  the  Jews  which 
is  handed  down  to  us  in  the  historical  books 
of  the  Old  Testament.  There  may  be  one 
or  two  variations  in  detail,  but  the  speech 
records  the  main  facts  in  the  story  of 
Abraham  and  the  Patriarchs,  the  bondage 
in  Egypt  and  the  deliverance,  the  giving  of 
the  Law  by  Moses,  the  entrance  under 
Joshua  into  Canaan,  and  the  establishment 
of  the  kingdom  and  the  temple  under  David 
and  Solomon,   and  treats   them   as  primary 


PROMISE  TO  ABRAHAM  37 

facts  in  determining  the  will  of  God  and  the 
duty  of  the  Jews.  In  this  primitive  and 
inspired  Christian  argument,  therefore,  the 
recorded  facts  of  Jewish  history  are  treated 
as  bound  up  inseparably  with  the  truth  of 
the  Gospel,  and  any  view  of  that  history, 
and  of  the  records  of  that  history,  which 
would  undermine  those  facts  would,  at  the 
same  time,  cut  the  ground  from  under  St 
Stephen's  argument. 

But  what  I  am  more  immediately  con- 
cerned to  observe,  for  the  present  purpose,  is 
that  the  speech  is  based,  not  only  upon  the 
recognition  of  the  truth  of  the  received  facts 
of  Jewish  history,  but,  still  more,  upon  the 
truth  that  that  history  had  been  foretold  by 
prophecy,  and  had  been  directed  in  accord- 
ance with  that  prophecy.  The  corner-stone 
of  Jewish  history,  according  to  St  Stephen, 
was  a  prophecy,  and  a  very  remarkable  one. 
''The  God  of  Glory,"  he  says,  ''appeared 
unto  our  father  Abraham,  when  he  was  in 
Mesopotamia,  before  he  dwelt  in  Charran, 
and  said  unto  him :  Get  thee  out  of  thy 
country,  and  from  thy  kindred,  and  come 
into  the  land  which  I  shall  show  thee.  Then 
came  he  out  of  the  land  of  the  Chaldseans, 
and  dwelt  in  Charran  ;  and  from  thence,  when 

c  2 


38  SOLOMON'S  PRAYER 

his  father  was  dead,  God  removed  him  into 
this  land  wherein  ye  now  dwell.  And  he 
gave  him  none  inheritance  in  it — no,  not  so 
much  as  to  set  his  foot  on  :  yet  he  promised 
that  he  would  give  it  to  him  for  a  possession, 
and  to  his  seed  after  him,  when  as  yet  he  had 
no  child."  Then  came  a  further  prophecy — 
that  this  seed  should  be  in  bondage  in  a 
strange  land  400  years.  St  Stephen  goes 
on  to  relate  how  this  promise  was  fulfilled, 
especially  through  Moses,  and  how  the 
kingdom  was  at  last  established  under  David, 
and  a  temple  was  built  by  Solomon,  which 
God  condescended  to  accept  as  His  abode. 
But  St  Stephen  observes  that,  at  the  very 
time  when  these  old  prophecies  were  thus 
fulfilled,  a  new  prophecy  pointed  forward  to 
something  greater  and  larger.  It  was  Moses 
himself  who  said  unto  the  children  of  Israel : 
''  A  prophet  shall  the  Lord  your  God  raise 
up  unto  you  of  your  brethren  like  unto  me  ;  " 
and  at  the  very  dedication  of  Solomon's 
temple,  the  King,  in  his  grand  prayer,  ac- 
knowledged the  truth  that  ''  heaven  and  the 
heaven  of  heavens  cannot  contain  Thee ; 
how  much  less  this  house  that  I  have 
bullded,"  in  accordance  with  the  words  which 
St   Stephen  quotes  from  Isaiah  :   **  Heaven 


JEWISH  HARDNESS  39 

is  my  throne,  and  earth  is  my  footstool : 
what  house  will  ye  build  me,  saith  the  Lord, 
or  what  is  the  place  of  my  rest  ? "  As  the 
prophecy,  accordingly,  had  pointed  forward 
from  Abraham  for  hundreds  of  years,  through 
the  bondage  in  Egypt  to  the  settlement  of 
his  seed  in  Canaan,  and  to  the  establishment 
of  God's  worship  there,  so  through  the 
mouths  of  Moses,  David,  and  Solomon,  by 
whom  those  prophecies  had  at  last  been 
realised,  did  it  again  point  forward  to  the 
appearance  of  a  greater  prophet,  and  to  the 
recognition  of  the  truth  that  **God  is  a 
Spirit,  and  they  that  worship  Him  must 
worship  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth." 

The  cardinal  principle,  therefore,  on  which 
St  Stephen  rests  his  case  is  that,  from  the 
commencement  of  their  history  and  at  its 
great  crises,  the  Jews  had  been  granted  pro- 
phetic indications  of  the  Divine  Will  for  the 
future,  which  were  sufficient  for  their  guid- 
ance if  they  had  been  received  honestly  and 
without  self-will.  It  was  due  to  persistent 
obstinacy  and  malice  that  those  prophecies 
were  rejected,  either  in  the  first  instance  or 
in  the  result.  *'Ye  stiff-necked  and  uncir- 
cumcised  in  heart  and  ears,  ye  do  always 
resist  the  Holy  Ghost :  as  your  fathers  did 


40       PROPHECY  AND  FULFILMENT 

so  do  ye.  Which  of  the  prophets  have  not 
your  fathers  persecuted  ?  and  they  have  slain 
them  which  showed  before  of  the  coming  of 
the  Just  One,  of  whom  ye  have  been  now  the 
betrayers  and  murderers."  The  severity  of 
the  censure  thus  passed  on  the  Jews  is  a 
measure  of  the  distinctness  and  the  authority 
of  the  prophecies  which  they  thus  rejected. 
It  needed,  according  to  St  Stephen,  no 
extraordinary  subtlety,  but  only  honest  and 
good  hearts,  for  the  Jews  to  have  seen,  in 
the  word  of  prophecy,  an  adequate  assurance 
of  the  Divine  Will  as  the  facts  foretold  came 
to  be  realised. 

Now,  this  inspired  argument  of  St  Stephen 
involves  the  principle,  that  the  truth  of 
Christianity  can  be  evidenced  from  the  fulfil- 
ment of  the  prophecies  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments ;  and  in  illustrating  that  truth  we 
have  but'  to  vindicate  St  Stephen's  argu- 
ment, and  to  mark  its  application  to  other 
points  besides  those  which  were  immediately 
within  his  survey.  But  it  will  be  found  to 
be  of  great  importance,  in  the  first  instance, 
to  realise  distinctly  the  view  of  the  nature  and 
office  of  prophecy  which  is  thus  exhibited  to 
us.  The  reality  and  the  momentous  nature 
of  prophecy  are  sufficiently  established  by  the 


PROPHECY  AS  A  WHOLE  41 

fact  that  our  religion,  as  was  well  expressed 
by  the  late  Dr  Leathes  in  his  Bampton 
Lectures,  is  "The  religion  of  the  Christ" — 
the  religion,  that  is,  of  One  who  was,  beyond 
all  question,  expected  before  He  came,  and 
the  idea  of  whose  office  was  deeply  fixed  in 
the  mind  of  the  whole  nation  of  the  Jews  by 
the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  ;  though,  when 
its  spiritual  conditions  were  really  set  before 
their  eyes,  they  revolted  from  them.  But 
the  full  force  of  prophecy,  even  in  this 
cardinal  instance — its  function,  and,  if  I  may 
so  say,  its  reasonableness — will  be  better 
understood  if  we  contemplate  its  operation 
as  a  whole  under  the  principle  suggested  and 
authorised  by  St  Stephen,  and  if  we  regard 
it,  not  merely  as  pointing  forward  to  one 
great  event  and  serving  one  particular  use, 
but  as  an  essential  and  organic  part  of  the 
Divine  method  of  revelation,  and  of  the 
providential  government  and  guidance  of 
God's  people. 

There  has  been  a  disposition  of  late  to 
reproach  Christian  theologians  of  a  former 
school  with  regarding  prophecies  as  isolated 
miracles,  proving  a  revelation  by  the  mere 
manifestation  of  a  supernatural  marvel ;  and 
in  the  recoil  from  the  supposed  narrowness 


42  DAVISON  ON  PROPHECY 

of  this  view  of  the  office  of  prophecy  there 
has  been  a  disposition  to  concentrate  atten- 
tion, almost  wholly,  upon  the  profound  re- 
ligious and  moral  instruction,  or,  rather, 
revelation,  which  the  books  of  the  greater 
prophets  contain.  Now,  it  is  a  misfortune, 
perhaps,  of  the  present  day  that  men  find  it 
more  and  more  difficult  to  read  what  their 
predecessors  have  written  ;  but  in  order  to 
vindicate  the  older  theology  from  any  charge 
of  narrowness  of  this  kind,  it  is  only  neces- 
sary to  refer  to  a  once  famous  volume  of 
Warburton  lectures  preached  some  seventy 
years  ago  by  the  Rev.  John  Davison.  It  is 
a  volume  illuminated  by  the  best  thoughts  of 
the  ancient  Fathers,  but  affording  an  inde- 
pendent and  most  striking  review  of  the  whole 
range  of  Old  Testament  prophecy.  There 
are  few  books  equally  instructive  to  an  earnest 
student  of  the  Scriptures ;  and  though  it 
now  requires  to  be  supplemented,  or  sup- 
ported, on  various  points,  in  consequence  of 
the  discussions  of  the  last  fifty  years  on 
the  authenticity  and  interpretation  of  the 
Scriptures,  the  main  facts  elucidated  by  the 
author  afford  an  indispensable  foundation 
for  an  adequate  discussion  of  this  subject. 
Now,  this  authoritative  writer  commences 


MORAL  PROPHECY  43 

by  noticing  that  the  prophetic  volume  really 
distinguishes  itself  into  two  parts,  which  may 
be  called  the  moral,  or  doctrinal,   and  the 
predictive.     *'  Prophecy,"  he  says,^  *'is  not  a 
mere  series  of  predictions.     Far  from  it.     It 
abounds  in  matter  of  another  kind  ...  the 
most  frequent  subjects  of  the  prophets  are 
the  laws  of  God,  His  supreme  dominion  and 
universal   providence,    the    majesty   of    His 
nature,  His  spiritual  being,  and  His  holiness, 
together  with  the  obligations  of  obedience  to 
Him  .  .  .  and  of  justice  and  mercy  to  man. 
These  original  principles  of  piety  and  morals 
overspread  the  pages  of  the  Book  of  Pro- 
phecy."    But  after  an  ample  recognition  of 
this  vital  part  of  the  work  of  the  prophets, 
we  are  reminded  that  the  direct  and  proper 
evidence  of  the  inspired  origin  of  prophecy 
consists  in  the  series  and   fulfilment  of  its 
predictions  :  ''  By  which  medium  it   is  that 
prophecy  bears  its  most  emphatic  testimony 
to    the   truth   of  the  Jewish  and  Christian 
religions"  (p.  68).     But  that  upon  which  the 
author   chiefly  lays   stress    is    the   fact  that 
Scriptural  prophecy  offers  ''a  continuous  and 
connected  series  of  predictions."    ''  It  is  not," 
he  observes,  ''a  collection  of  insulated  predic- 
1  Discourses  on  Prophecy,  5th  ed.,  1845. 


44  PREDICTIVE  PROPHECY 

tions,  but  it  is,  in  several  parts,  a  connected 
order  of  predictive  revelation  carried  on 
under  distinct  branches  "  (p.  69).  As  it  thus 
embraces  **not  merely  detached  events,  but 
a  series  and  combination  of  them,  the  proof 
of  a  Divine  foreknowledge  dictating  the 
whole  will  be  the  more  conclusive."  Thus, 
in  the  view  of  the  older  expositors  of  pro- 
phecy, in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  St 
Stephen's  defence,  its  primary  value  consists, 
not  in  the  bare  fact  of  its  affording  a  mani- 
festation of  miraculous  power  or  knowledge, 
but  in  its  exhibiting  manifestations  of  Divine 
prescience  and  Divine  providence  throughout 
the  whole  of  a  long  and  mysterious  course 
of  history,  and  being  adapted  to  the  exi- 
gencies of  each  successive  period  of  that 
history. 

It  is  notorious  that  some  modern  criticism 
professes  to  invalidate  many  of  the  docu- 
ments and  facts  on  which  this  ancient  view 
of  prophecy — a  view  as  ancient,  we  have 
seen,  as  the  first  inspired  utterances  of 
Christian  teachers  after  the  Ascension — is 
based,  and  to  its  pretensions  in  this  respect 
attention  must  be  paid  in  the  proper  place. 
But  let  us  be  content  for  the  present  to  have 
before    us   simply    the   case,    so    to   say,    of 


ABRAHAM'S  PROMISE  45 

Scripture  prophecy,  as  generally  stated  by 
such  a  writer  as  I  am  quoting,  in  accordance 
with  the  best  traditions  of  the  Christian 
Church.  That  case  is  this — that  from  the 
first  dawn,  under  Abraham,  of  that  great 
dispensation  of  things  which  led  up  to  the 
coming  of  our  Lord  and  the  establishment 
of  the  Christian  Church,  and  which  will  be 
brought  to  a  consummation  at  his  Second 
Coming,  the  predictive  voice  of  prophecy 
was  heard  at  every  considerable  step  in  the 
development,  giving  such  a  degree  of  light 
on  the  future  as  was  needed,  in  order  that 
men  might  have  sufficient  encouragement 
for  their  faith  in  the  particular  duty  or  trial 
which  was  laid  upon  them ;  so  that  it  is 
exactly  described  in  St  Peter's  exhortation  : 
''  We  have  also  a  more  sure  word  of 
prophecy ;  whereunto  ye  do  well  that  ye 
take  heed,  as  unto  a  lamp  that  shineth  in  a 
dark  place,  until  the  day  dawn,  and  the 
daystar  arise  in  your  hearts." 

First,  in  the  case  of  Abraham,  in  order  that 
he  may  have  faith  ''to  sojourn  in  the  land  of 
promise,  as  in  a  strange  country,"  he  is  given 
an  assurance  which  embraces  the  twofold 
contents  of  all  subsequent  prophecy,  temporal 
and  spiritual — That  his  descendants  should 


46  JACOBUS  VISIOxNS 

inherit  the  land  of  Canaan  ;  and  that  in  his 
seed  should  all  nations  of  the  earth  be 
blessed.  Beyond  this  he  was  only  informed 
that  his  descendants  would  undergo  a 
servitude  of  400  years  ;  but,  in  the  faith  of 
these  two  promises,  as  the  writer  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  says,  ''  He  looked 
for  a  city  which  hath  foundations,  whose 
builder  and  maker  is  God."  Next,  on  the 
eve  of  Jacob's  entry  into  Egypt,  a  vision  is 
vouchsafed  him,  by  which  he  is  assured  that 
his  going  there  was  under  God's  direction, 
and  that  he  and  his  seed  would  be  brought 
up  again.  Next,  at  Jacob's  own  death, 
when  his  descendants  are  about  to  enter 
on  a  long  period  of  humiliation,  he  is 
inspired  to  give  a  prophetic  sketch  of  their 
future  prerogatives  as  distinct  tribes,  and 
they  are  thus  assured  of  a  special  destiny 
being  reserved  for  them  all ;  while  at  this 
stage,  whatever  interpretation  may  be  given 
to  a  much-disputed  text,  it  is  at  least  clear 
that  a  special  distinction  is  assigned  to  the 
tribe  of  Judah. 

Prophecy  then  ceases  until  the  moment 
arrives  for  Moses  to  come  forward  to  deliver 
the  people  from  Egypt.  It  is  his  mission  to 
revive  the  old  prophecies  made  to  Abraham, 


LAW  OF  MOSES  47 

Isaac,  and  Jacob,  but  to  attach  the  permanent 
enjoyment  of  them  to  the  faithful  obedience 
to  the  Law  which  he  is  commissioned  to 
declare.  He  leaves  the  people  on  the  border 
of  the  promised  land  with  a  great  destiny 
before  them,  and,  at  the  same  time,  with  a 
heavy  charge  and  responsibility — the  charge 
and  responsibility  of  a  Law,  solemnly  revealed 
by  God,  to  be  their  guide  and  their  protection 
throughout  the  temptations  of  their  national 
career.  At  this  time,  accordingly,  he  is 
represented  in  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy  as 
endorsing  that  Law  by  a  prophetic  revelation 
of  the  blessings  which  would  follow  the  people 
if  they  obeyed  it,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the 
punishments  which  would  fall  upon  them  if 
they  disobeyed  it — punishments  which  have, 
at  all  events,  been  fulfilled  to  the  letter  in 
the  subsequent  history  of  the  people.  About 
the  same  time,  in  the  prophecies  of  Balaam 
— delivered,  as  they  were,  on  the  verge  of 
the  promised  land — a  vision  is  opened, 
which  was  undoubtedly  cherished  among 
them,  of  the  rise  of  a  Star  cut  of  Jacob, 
and  of  a  sceptre  out  of  Israel,  and  of  the 
wide  influence  which  was  designed  for  them. 
With  these  prophecies  the  children  of  Israel 
settled    in    the    promised    land — prophecies 


48  SAMUEL  AND  PROPHECY 

sufficient  to  assure  them  that  they  had  been 
under  the  Divine  guidance  hitherto,  and  that 
that  guiding  hand  was  still  over  them,  expect- 
ing their  continued  obedience,  and  opening  a 
further  destiny  before  them  if  they  obeyed  it. 
After  this,  predictive  prophecy  is  again 
silent  for  the  400  years  previous  to  the  time 
of  Samuel,  and  this  silence,  as  Mr  Davison 
points  out,  corresponds  to  the  fact  that  no 
new  turn  or  prospect  in  their  history  was 
opened  during  that  period.  There  was  no 
change  or  movement  in  their  course,  and, 
consequently,  no  special  Divine  voice  was 
required.  But,  at  the  time  of  Samuel  that 
great  change  in  their  condition  begins,  which 
is  marked  by  the  establishment  of  the 
kingdom,  and  their  subsequent  coming  into 
connection  with  the  increasing  movements 
and  consolidations  of  the  other  kingdoms 
around  them.  The  500  years  which  follow 
Samuel  are  the  years  in  which  the  nation  is 
brought  to  its  fullest  development,  and  put 
to  Its  great  trial  in  its  relations  with  the 
powerful  monarchies,  the  seductive  religions, 
and  the  corrupting  civilisations  around  it. 
At  this  point,  accordingly,  to  meet  these 
emergencies,  the  predictive  prophet  reappears, 
and  his  functions  attain  their  greatest  height. 


THE  FAMILY  OF  DAVID  49 

Every  step  and  stage  in  the  drama  is 
attended  by  Divine  voices,  which,  in  the 
first  place,  mark  out  sufficiently  the  course 
immediately  designed  by  the  Divine  Will, 
and,  in  the  second  place,  indicate  more  and 
more  clearly  the  ultimate  destiny  towards 
which  everything  is  being  directed.  First 
of  all,  it  is  laid  down  as  a  fixed  point  in  the 
subsequent  development  that  David's  house 
will  be  the  permanent  centre  for  the  nation, 
occupying  the  throne  provided  his  descend- 
ants are  faithful,  but  in  any  case  the  centre 
of  God's  promises  to  the  people.  Next,  the 
temple  on  Mount  Zion  is  marked  out  as  the 
local  centre  of  God's  providence.  "Now," 
it  was  said,  "have  I  hallowed  this 
house,  to  put  my  Name  there  for  ever, 
and  Mine  eyes  and  Mine  heart  shall  be 
there  perpetually."  Accordingly,  for  the 
next  looo  years — until  the  Son  of  David 
was  finally  cast  out  from  the  Temple  of 
Jerusalem  by  the  malice  of  its  priests — 
around  that  one  spot  of  earth  did  the 
development  of  the  Divine  revelation  turn  ; 
but  even  amidst  the  glorious  scene  of  the 
dedication  of  the  temple,  a  clear  and  distinct 
foresight  of  its  ultimate  doom  is  impressed 
upon  the  vision  of  Solomon. 

D 


50  COxNTINUOUS  PREDICTION 

From  this  point,  as  we  pass  through  the 
subsequent  disturbed  history,  it  is  un- 
necessary to  recall  in  detail  how  every  event 
— the  rebellion,  for  instance,  of  Rehoboam  ; 
the  successive  disasters  of  the  kingdom  of 
Israel ;  the  destruction  of  the  house  of 
Ahab  ;  the  final  overthrow  of  Samaria,  and 
the  dispersion  of  the  ten  tribes — are  all 
announced  in  solemn  warnings  by  a  succes- 
sion of  prophets,  from  Ahijah  to  Isaiah. 
Kings  and  people  were  warned  beforehand 
of  the  consequences  of  their  conduct,  and 
those  consequences  were  definitely,  and  not 
merely  generally,  predicted.  In  particular, 
the  restoration  of  Judah,  as  distinct  from 
the  entire  destruction  which  was  to  be  the 
fate  of  Israel,  is  distinctly  marked.  In 
short,  it  does  not  seem  too  much  to  say, 
**that  there  was  no  one  considerable 
ordinance  or  appointment  of  God  under 
the  first  dispensation"' — neither  the  gift  of 
Canaan,  nor  the  Mosaic  Covenant,  nor  the 
Mosaic  worship,  nor  the  temporal  kingdom 
of  David,  nor  the  Temple — which  was 
permitted  to  pass  away  without  definite 
prophecy  (p.  224) ;  and,  further,  that  be- 
tv>^een  the  commencement  of  the  monarchy 
and    the    return    of    the    people    from    the 


VISION  OF  THE  GOSPEL  51 

Babylonian  captivity,  there  is  no  known 
event  of  any  magnitude,  by  which  they  were 
affected  as  a  people,  which  was  not  announced 
by  some  prophetic  warning-. 

Finally,  as  the  time  approaches  when  the 
kingdom  of  Judah,  no  less  than  that  of  Israel, 
is   to    be  overthrown,  and    the    promises  of 
God  to  His  people  are  for  a  time  to  receive, 
to    human    appearance,    a    complete    defeat, 
prophecy,    which    from    the    time    of   David 
and  Solomon  had  commenced  to  point,  with 
increasing  clearness,   to  a  Diviner  kingdom 
and  a  more  perfect  temple,  concentrates  its 
light  more  and  more  on  that  great  spiritual 
future ;    and    as  the  temporal  hopes  of   the 
nation  are  obscured,  the  spiritual  glories  of 
the  Gospel,  which  were  to  arise  upon  their 
ruins,  become  more  and  more  clearly  revealed. 
In  other  words,  it  is  at  the  moment  when 
the  promises    of  the   first    dispensation  are 
visibly  fading,  and  when  the  faith  of  those 
who    believed    in    the    promises    given    to 
Abraham     and     David     must     have     been 
strained  almost  beyond  endurance,  that  the 
words     of    evangelistic    comfort    begin    to 
occupy  almost    the   whole  of  the  prophetic 
voice,    and    the    vision    is    more   and    more 
clearly  seen  of  those  last  days  when  "many 


52  THE  FLNAL  PROPHECIES 

peoples  shall  go  and  say,  Come  ye,  and  let 
us  go  up  to  the  mountain  of  the  Lord,  to 
the  house  of  God  of  Jacob  ;  and  He  will 
teach  us  of  His  ways,  and  we  will  walk  in 
His  paths  ;  for  out  of  Zion  shall  go  forth 
the  law,  and  the  word  of  the  Lord  from 
Jerusalem."  Then,  too,  amidst  the  suffering 
of  the  people,  was  seen  the  vision  of  that 
Great  Sufferer  who  should  bear  their  sins, 
and  by  whom  their  stripes  should  be  healed. 
Finally,  after  the  return  from  the  Captivity, 
prophecy  points  forward  to  the  return  of  the 
Lord  to  His  temple  ;  it  predicts  that  then 
would  be  the  great  and  dreadful  day  of  the 
Lord — as  it  proved,  indeed,  to  the  Jews  of 
our  Lord's  time — and  that  it  would  be 
preceded  by  the  advent  of  one  who  would 
come  in  the  spirit  and  power  of  Elijah  ;  and 
thus,  in  the  striking  expression  of  Mr 
Davison,  *' resigning  its  charge  to  the 
personal  precursor  of  Christ,  Old  Testament 
prophecy  expired  with  the  Gospel  upon  its 
tongue"  (p.  347).  Such  is  the  living  and 
original  conception  of  the  nature  and  office 
of  ancient  prophecy,  as  believed  by  the 
Church,  and  urged  by  ancient  interpreters. 
Now  let  it  be  asked  whether  this  be  not  a 
very  different  conception  of  the  nature  and 


TWO  THOUSAND  YEARS  53 

office  of  predictive  prophecy  from  the  narrow 
notion  of  it,  as  of  a  set  of  fragmentary- 
marvels,  which  has  been  sometimes  errone- 
ously attributed  to  ancient  interpreters.  In 
a  subsequent  lecture  an  endeavour  will  be 
made  to  illustrate  more  fully  its  importance 
as  a  proof  and  test  of  Divine  revelation. 
But  meanwhile,  let  us  contemplate  for  a 
moment  the  grand  spectacle  which  is  pre- 
sented to  us  by  such  a  review.  Let  us 
conceive  ourselves  listening  across  a  space 
of  nearly  2000  years,  from  Abraham  onward, 
to  the  Divine  voice,  heard  behind  the  vast 
and  mysterious  scene  of  history,  uttering 
the  end  from  the  beginning,  pronouncing 
few,  but  pregnant,  words  of  command  and 
of  warning  to  its  chosen  ministers  at  the 
great  crises  of  their  own  destiny,  or  the 
destiny  of  their  nation,  or  the  destiny  of  the 
world ;  declaring  to  them  that  the  way  in 
which  they  were  called  upon  to  walk,  though 
often  dark  and  mysterious,  was  tending 
towards  the  vindication  of  righteousness, 
and  the  establishment  of  truth  and  justice 
on  the  earth ;  bidding  them  watch  with 
their  own  eyes  how  those  promises  of 
righteousness  were  fulfilled,  and  so  encourag- 
ing or  warning  them  in  every  great  struggle 

D  2 


54  FROM  FIRST  TO  LAST 

and  every  moment  of  temptation.  The 
historian,  if  gifted  with  a  more  than  human 
insight,  might  possibly,  from  the  mere  facts 
themselves,  trace  backward  the  evidences  of 
a  Divine  hand  ruling  this  obscure  drama  ; 
but  the  devout  student  of  the  Scriptures  is 
privileged  in  prophecy  to  hear  the  Divine 
Ruler  issuing  His  commands,  and  thus  to 
follow  the  history  from  within  and  from 
above,  as  it  is  being  made.  Much  in  the 
same  manner  may  the  natural  philosopher 
laboriously  trace  back  the  stages  of  the 
Divine  workmanship  in  the  creation  ei  the 
heavens  and  of  the  earth,  while  the  Christian 
student  is  admitted  to  the  very  vision  of  the 
scene  when  the  morning  stars  sang  together, 
and  hears  simultaneously  the  utterance  of 
the  Divine  voice  and  its  fulfilment — '*God 
said.  Let  there  be  light ;  and  there  was 
light." 


Ill 

THE  VALUE  OF  PROPHECY  AS 
AN    EVIDENCE    OF    REVELATION 

"  And  now  I  have  told  you  before  it  come  to  pass,  that, 
when  it  is  come  to  pass,  ye  might  believe." — St  John, 
xiv.  29. 

The  final  discourses  of  our  Lord  to  His 
disciples  afford  a  remarkable  illustration 
of  the  practical  value  of  prophecy  as  an 
evidence  of  revelation.  Three  times  in 
these  discourses  does  He  impress  on  them 
the  fact  that  He  was  warning  them  before- 
hand of  what  was  about  to  come  to  pass, 
in  order  that,  when  it  had  come  to  pass, 
they  might  believe.  The  first  instance  is 
when  He  is  referring  to  His  approaching 
betrayal.  ''The  Scripture,"  He  said,  ''will 
be  fulfilled :  he  that  eateth  bread  with 
Me,  hath  lifted  up  his  heel  against  Me. 
Now,  I  tell  you  before  it  come,  that, 
when  it  is  come  to  pass,  ye  may  believe 
that  I  am  He."     The  second  instance  is  in 

reference    to    His    approaching    departure. 

55 


56  OUR  LORD'S  WARNINGS 

"  Ye  have  heard  how  I  said  unto  you,  I  go 
away  and  come  again  unto  you.  .  .  .  And 
now,"  He  adds,  *'  I  have  told  you  before  it 
come  to  pass,  that,  when  it  is  come  to  pass, 
ye  might  believe."  The  third  follows  in  the 
same  discourse,  when  He  is  warning  His 
disciples  of  the  persecution  which  awaited 
them.  ''These  things,"  He  said,  ''will  they 
do  unto  you  because  they  have  not  known 
the  Father  nor  Me.  But  these  things  have 
I  told  you,  that,  when  the  time  is  come,  ye 
may  remember  that  I  told  you  of  them." 
The  Apostles  were  about  to  witness  and 
to  experience  circumstances  of  the  strangest 
and  most  painful  nature.  They  were  to  see 
their  Master,  whom  they  believed  in  as  the 
Christ  of  God,  betrayed  by  one  of  them- 
selves, and  delivered  over  to  a  shameful 
death ;  and  though  He  rose  again  and 
ascended  to  heaven  in  glory,  yet  when 
they  came  forward  to  proclaim  His  exalta- 
tion, they  would  be  excommunicated  by  the 
leaders  of  their  people,  and  whosoever  killed 
them  would  think  that  he  did  God  service. 
Their  hopes  and  their  convictions  were  thus 
to  undergo  a  succession  of  the  most  grievous 
disappointments,  and  the  most  severe  strain 
would  be  put  upon  their  faith.     What  con- 


THE  OFFICE  OF  PROPHECY  57 

siderations  were  to  sustain  them  under  it  ? 
Our  Lord  gives  them  various  assurances 
of  comfort ;  but  the  one  which  He  thus 
reiterates  three  times  over  must  have  been 
intended  by  Him  to  be  of  special  importance. 
This  was,  that  nothing  would  happen  to 
Himself  or  to  them  which  He  had  not  fore- 
told. They  might,  therefore,  be  assured  that 
it  was  compatible  with  other  truths  which 
He  proclaimed  to  them,  and  particularly  with 
their  belief  that  He  was  their  Divine  Lord 
and  Master.  They  would  have  good  reason 
to  feel  that  the  trials  which  befell  them, 
however  distressing,  were  part  of  a  dis- 
pensation foreseen  and  intended  by  their 
Master,  and  their  confidence  in  Him  and 
His  guidance  ought  thus  to  be  the  more 
firmly  established. 

In  these  simple  words  our  Lord  has  supplied 
the  key  to  the  question  of  the  office  and  use 
of  prophecy.  In  the  two  previous  lectures 
the  cardinal  facts  of  prophecy  and  its  general 
nature  have  been  considered.  It  has  been 
shown  how,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  long  before 
our  Lord's  appearance,  it  had  pointed  to  the 
coming  of  a  Person  who  should  fulfil  towards 
mankind  the  offices  which  He  came  to  dis- 
charge,   and    also    that   it    had   not   merely 


68  GENERAL  JEWISH  BELIEF 

pointed  forward  to  this  supreme  fact,  but 
that  its  voice  had  accompanied  every  step  in 
the  history  of  the  people  of  Israel,  from 
the  time  when  Abraham  was  called 
to  leave  his  Father's  house,  to  the  time 
when  Malachi  uttered  the  concluding  pre- 
dictions of  the  old  dispensation.  Accord- 
ing to  the  conviction  of  the  Jews  of  our 
Lord's  day,  as  illustrated  in  St  Stephen's 
speech,  the  whole  life  of  the  Jewish  people 
depended  on  the  truth  that  the  God  of  glory 
had  from  time  to  time  appeared  to  their 
fathers,  declaring  to  them  at  once  their 
destiny  and  their  duty  ;  and  upon  those 
revelations  of  prophecy  St  Stephen  rested 
his  belief  in  the  truth  he  proclaimed,  that 
our  Lord  had  established  a  spiritual  worship, 
which  was  independent  of  the  local  and  tem- 
porary ordinances  of  the  Jewish  sanctuary. 
This  was  the  settled  belief  of  the  Jews  of 
our  Lord's  day,  alike  of  St  Stephen  and  the 
Apostles  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  those  who 
rejected  their  message  on  the  other.  The 
only  point  in  dispute  between  them  was  as 
to  the  application  of  those  prophecies,  not 
as  to  their  reality. 

But  let  us  next  consider  what  is  the  use 
which  such  prophecies  serve  in  the  proof  of 


WITNESS  OF  PROPHECY  59 

our  religion.  That  they  are  of  momentous 
importance  to  it  would  seem  evident  from 
the  place  which  they  fill  in  the  sacred 
volume.  Prophecy  occupies  a  larger  space 
there  than  miracles — it  should  rather  be  said 
than  other  miracles,  for  prophecy  itself  is  a 
miracle,  and  a  standing  miracle.  But,  be- 
sides the  great  place  which  the  books  of  the 
prophets  hold  in  the  records  of  the  Divine 
revelation,  it  is  a  very  striking  fact,  as  Paley 
has  observed,  that  in  the  preaching  of  the 
Apostles,  as  recorded  in  the  book  of  their 
Acts  and  in  their  Epistles,  much  less  stress 
is  laid  upon  the  miracles  wrought  by  our 
Lord  than  upon  the  fulfilment  of  prophecy 
in  His  life,  death,  and  resurrection.  The 
miracles  are  referred  to  in  passing  as  things 
well  known.  The  Jews  are  reminded  that 
our  Lord  went  about  doing  good  and  healing 
all  that  were  oppressed  with  the  devil.  But 
the  main  point  on  which  an  Apostle  like 
St  Peter  lays  stress  is  that  ''to  Him  give  all 
the  prophets  witness." 

This  fact  suggests  the  main  argument 
in  a  series  of  lectures  on  this  subject, 
which  are  not  less  instructive  than 
those  of  Mr  Davison  —  the  '*  Propae- 
deia    Prophetica"    of    Dr    Lyall,    sometime 


60  DR  LYALL'S  LECTURES 

Dean  of  Canterbury.  He  says  ^  that 
Paley  has  correctly  observed  "that  the 
Apostles  must  have  taken  for  granted  that 
the  miracles  ascribed  to  Christ  were  known 
to  all  their  hearers  ;  but  he  does  not  add 
that  the  medium  of  proof  by  which  they 
endeavoured  to  demonstrate  that  those 
miracles  had  God  for  their  author  was 
altogether  drawn  from  the  prophecies  of  the 
Old  Testament  "  (p.  157).  "  The  invariable 
purport  of  all  their  arguments,  and  which 
they  kept  always  in  view,  was  to  prove  that 
the  Gospel  which  they  preached  was  the 
subject  of  the  prophecies  with  which  the 
Jewish  Scriptures  were  filled,  and,  so  far  as 
appears,  it  was  only  this  which  the  Jews 
denied."  He  adds  that  "  the  early  fathers 
of  the  Church  do  not  found  the  controversy 
upon  the  miracles  of  Christ  any  more  than 
do  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament.  Both 
of  them  take  these  wonderful  facts  for 
granted,  but,  for  the  explanation  of  them, 
recourse  is  had  only  to  the  Old  Testament  " 
(p.  158).  Take  the  leading  fathers  of  the 
two  or  three  centuries  after  the  death  of  our 

1  The  references  are  to  the  edition  of  the  "  Propaedeia 
Prophetica,"  published  in  1885  by  the  Rev.  G.  C.  Pearson, 
M.A.,  Honorary  Canon  of  Canterbury. 


EVIDENCE  OF  PROPHECY  61 

Lord,  and  he  observes  with  truth  that, 
"while  all  of  them,  either  directly  or  by 
implication,  attribute  their  own  conversion 
to  the  study  of  the  Old  Testament,  not  one 
— if  we  except  Arnobius — appeals  to  the 
miracles  as  a  proof  of  Christ's  Divine 
authority"  (p.  159).  In  short,  the  early 
apologists  of  Christianity,  though  alluding 
to  the  miracles  of  Christ  as  substantiating 
their  belief,  yet  vindicate  their  belief  itself, 
not  on  this  ground,  but  on  the  fulfilment  of 
the  Hebrew  prophecies.  It  was  not,  in 
other  words,  only  the  performance  by  our 
Lord  of  wonderful  works,  but  the  corre- 
spondence of  those  works,  and  of  the  claims 
by  which  they  were  accompanied,  with  the 
continuous  series  of  prophecies  throughout 
the  course  of  Jewish  history,  which  con- 
clusively evidenced  His  Divine  character 
and  authority. 

In  illustration  of  this  view  of  the  import- 
ance of  prophecy,  it  may  be  observed,  in  the 
first  instance,  that  the  simplest  prophecies, 
if  fulfilled,  afford  an  unquestionable  revela- 
tion more  direct  and  more  intelligible  than 
any  other  miracles.  Abraham,  for  instance, 
according  to  the  Book  of  Genesis,  received 
the  promise  that  a  son  should  be  born  to 


62  ABRAHAM  AND  ISAAC 

himself  and  Sarah  beyond  the  ordinary 
course  of  nature,  and  this  promise  was  ful- 
filled. But  its  fulfilment  at  once  afforded 
Abraham  an  assurance  that  he  was  in  com- 
munion with  a  supernatural  Being.  Who 
that  Being  was,  what  was  His  character 
and  will,  he  would  learn  by  other  communica- 
tions, but  the  one  fulfilled  prophecy  assured 
him  that  a  Being  had  spoken  to  him  in 
whose  hands  were  the  springs  of  his  life, 
who  compassed  his  path  and  his  lying  down, 
and  who  was  acquainted  with  all  his  ways. 
The  birth  of  Isaac,  however  marvellous  or 
miraculous,  if  occurring  without  any  ex- 
planation and  standing  by  itself,  would 
simply  have  told  him  that  he  was  in  contact 
with  some  mysterious  force  beyond  the  range 
of  ordinary  experience  ;  but  it  would  not  of 
itself  have  revealed  to  him  either  the  nature 
of  the  force  or  the  character  of  his  relation 
to  it.  But  when  it  occurred  in  accordance 
with  the  promise  which  had  been  made  to 
him,  it  at  once  revealed  to  him  the  fact  that 
his  life  and  his  destiny  were  subject  to  the 
knowledge  and  control  of  the  Being  by 
whom  that  promise  was  made.  As  a  general 
rule,  in  fact,  it  is  not  the  miracle  by  itself, 
but  the  miracle  combined  with  the  command, 


THE  BASIS  OF  FAITH  63 

or  the  prediction,  that  it  should  occur,  which 
constitutes  the  revelation.  In  the  two  com- 
bined we  witness,  not  merely  a  supernatural 
manifestation,  but  the  manifestation  of  a 
supernatural  and  intelligent  will,  and  it  is 
this  which  constitutes  the  essence  of  a 
religious  revelation. 

It  was,  we  may  observe,  a  mode  of  revela- 
tion which  was  peculiarly  appropriate,  and 
even  necessary,  to  the  foundation  of 
religious  life  and  faith  in  the  world.  It  is 
possible  in  the  present  day,  from  our  intimate 
acquaintance  with  Nature,  for  very  powerful 
arguments  to  be  constructed  on  a  basis  of 
purely  natural  theology  to  convince  us  that 
the  world  was  made,  and  is  sustained,  by  a 
Being  of  supreme  wisdom  and  goodness. 
But  in  the  early  days  of  the  religious  history 
of  mankind  such  arguments  were  scarcely 
possible  ;  and  the  statement  in  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  was  peculiarly  true,  that  by 
faith  it  was  believed  that  the  worlds  were 
framed  by  the  word  of  God.  But  nothing 
could  contribute  more  to  produce  that  faith 
than  that  men  should  have  tangible  evidence 
that  the  course  of  their  own  lives  and  the 
destinies  of  their  nation  were  foreknown  to, 
and  directed  by,  a  living  Being   who,  in  all 


64  PROMISES  FULFILLED 

His  communications  to  them,  spoke  as  the 
God  of  all  righteousness  as  well  as  of  all 
knowledge.  A  child  in  a  distant  country 
may  never  have  seen  its  father ;  but  if  it 
receives  letters  from  him  from  time  to  time, 
directing  it  what  to  do  and  telling  it  what 
provision  will  be  made  for  it,  and  if  the 
promises  thus  held  out  to  it  are  fulfilled,  it 
can  have  no  doubt  of  its  being  under  its 
father's  guidance  and  control.  The  case  of 
the  Jews,  from  Abraham  downwards,  is 
closely  parallel.  They  were  under  divine 
education,  and  they  received  communications 
from  time  to  time  telling  them  what  was  the 
destiny  immediately  intended  for  them,  and 
imposing  certain  duties  on  them  ;  and  when 
they  found  those  destinies  realised — when, 
according  to  the  promise,  they  were  brought 
into  Egypt ;  when  according  to  the  promise, 
they  were  brought  out  of  Egypt ;  when, 
according  to  the  promise,  they  v/ere  settled 
in  Canaan  ;  when  the  course  of  their  history 
there  was  accompanied  by  successive  predic- 
tions, which  were  successively  fulfilled — there 
could  be  no  doubt  to  the  thoughtful  Jews,  and 
there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  to  ourselves 
if  we  believe  these  facts,  that  a  living  God  was 
among  them,  governing  and  directing  them. 


EFFECT  OF  THE  EXILE  65 

It  was,  above  all  things,  the  prophecy  that 
revealed  Him.  It  was  this  which  revealed 
the  design,  the  will,  the  wisdom,  and  the 
righteousness  which  were  at  work  among 
them,  and  assured  them  that  they  were  not 
in  contact  with  blind  forces,  or  with  unknown 
gods,  but  with  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac, 
and  Jacob. 

It  may  be  worth  considering  whether  this 
does  not  afford,  in  great  measure,  an  explana- 
tion of  one  of  the  most  striking  circum- 
stances in  the  history  of  the  Jews — the 
alteration  in  their  religious  character  after 
the  exile.  Until  the  time  of  the  exile  they 
had  been  perpetually  falling  back  into 
idolatry,  but  when  they  returned  from  the 
exile  every  trace  of  this  tendency  seems  to 
have  disappeared.  They  have  become  a 
nation  of  unbending  believers  in  one  God, 
the  God  of  their  fathers  ;  and  their  danger 
lies  no  longer  in  a  temptation  to  worship 
other  gods,  or  to  be  false  to  their  law,  but  in 
a  contrary  tendency,  to  exalt  their  belief  and 
their  obedience  to  the  law  into  a  new  idolatry. 
Is  it  unnatural  to  suppose  that  the  exile  had 
been  to  them,  as  the  fulfilment  of  prophecy, 
the  final  proof  that  the  God  of  whom  their 
prophets    had  spoken  to  them  was  the  one 

£ 


Q6  THE  FINAL  PROOF 

living  God,  and  that  their  whole  welfare 
depended,  as  had  always  been  proclaimed 
to  them,  on  obedience  to  His  will  and  His 
law?  The  predictions  of  the  exile,  first  of 
Israel  and  then  of  Judah,  were  the  culminat- 
ing prophecies  in  respect  to  ancient  Jewish 
history  ;  and  their  fulfilment,  in  all  the  bitter- 
ness of  the  terrible  reality,  was  at  least  well 
fitted  to  set  the  seal  upon  all  previous  pro- 
phecies, and  to  stamp  upon  the  mind  of  the 
Jew  those  truths  respecting  the  nature  and 
the  will  of  the  God  of  his  fathers  which  a 
less  severe  discipline  had  been  insufficient  to 
teach  him.  At  every  turn  of  Jewish  history 
the  prophetic  voice  is  heard  bespeaking  the 
loving  guidance  and  will  of  God.  Those 
voices,  together  with  their  fulfilment,  afford 
the  revelation  of  a  living  being  as  distinctly 
and  unmistakably  as  any  distant  person  not 
seen  by  ourselves — to  take  our  Lord's  image, 
as  a  king  in  a  far  country — is  revealed  by 
his  commands  and  promises  when  we  see 
them  acted  up  to  and  fulfilled.  To  the  Jews 
after  the  exile,  to  the  Jews  of  our  Lord's  day, 
this  revelation  was  complete  ;  and  nothing 
was  so  certain  to  them  as  that,  at  sundry 
times  and  in  divers  manners,  God  had  spoken 
unto  their  fathers  by  the  prophets,  and  that 


THE  NEW  DISPENSATION  67 

they  owed   to  Him    and    to    His   law   their 
absolute  allegiance  and  obedience. 

Now,  these  considerations  will  further 
explain  the  reason  why,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
arguments  of  the  Apostles  are  so  predomi- 
nantly concerned  with  the  evidence  of  pro- 
phecy. It  was  their  mission  to  proclaim  a 
new  dispensation,  which  would,  in  great 
measure,  supersede  the  old.  The  truth  was 
realised  more  and  more  by  themselves  and 
by  others  that,  in  accordance  with  the  charge 
against  Stephen,  Jesus  of  Nazareth  would 
change  the  customs  which  Moses,  and  God 
through  Moses,  had  delivered  to  the  Jews. 
Now,  it  may  be  admitted  that  it  would  have 
been  possible  for  some  stupendous  manifesta- 
tion to  have  authenticated  beyond  all  doubt 
this  assertion  of  the  close  and  supersession 
of  a  Divine  dispensation.  It  might  even  be 
argued  that  the  miracles,  the  moral  authority, 
and  the  resurrection  of  our  Lord,  did  con- 
stitute such  a  manifestation,  and  were  of 
themselves  sufficient  warrant  for  the  abroga- 
tion of  the  Mosaic  ordinances.  That,  indeed, 
would  be  a  stronger  argument  to  the  Gentile 
than  to  the  Jew,  whose  whole  soul  was  steeped 
in  the  belief  of  the  Divine  character  of  those 
ordinances.      But,  at   all   events,  it   will    be 


68         CONTINUITY  WITH  THE  OLD 

seen  that  it  adds  enormously  to  the  force  of 
the  works  and  words  of  our  Lord  if  it  can  be 
shown  that  those  works  and  words,  and  the 
revolution  of  religious  practice  which  He  and 
His  Apostles  proclaimed,  were  themselves 
not  only  not  contrary  to  the  old  law  and  to 
the  existing  dispensation,  but  actually  in 
harmony  with  them,  and  predicted  by  them 
as  much  and  as  distinctly  as  the  previous 
revolutions  in  Jewish  history  from  first  to 
last.  If  this  were  so,  then,  though  the 
Gospel  might  change  the  customs  which 
God  through  Moses  had  delivered  to  the 
Jews,  it  was  not  the  subversion  of  them,  but 
the  fulfilment  of  them.  It  put  the  coping- 
stone  upon  the  great  temple  of  Divine  revela- 
tion, and  revealed  a  perfect  harmony  from 
first  to  last  in  the  Divine  will  and  govern- 
ment. The  Jew,  after  all,  was  right  in 
demanding  some  momentous  evidence  before 
he  consented  to  the  supersession  of  the  law, 
of  which  the  Divine  origin  and  authority  had 
been  stamped  upon  his  mind  by  so  terrible 
an  experience  ;  and  it  was  at  least  a  most 
merciful,  if  not  a  necessary,  dispensation  that 
that  evidence  should  be  afforded  by  the  very 
prophecies  to  which  he  clung.  If  those 
prophecies  and  that  law  themselves  predicted 


SEALED  CREDENTIALS  69 

the  Gospel,  and  foretold  the  life,  the  death, 
and  the  resurrection  of  the  Saviour,  with  the 
spiritual  dominion  which  He  was  to  establish, 
then  the  Divine  character  of  the  new  dis- 
pensation was  one  with  that  of  the  old,  the 
purposes  and  the  will  of  God  were  unchanged, 
and  the  preaching  of  the  Apostles  was 
authenticated  by  the  very  Divine  oracles  to 
which  the  Jews  appealed. 

To  quote  the  striking  illustration  of  Dean 
Lyall  (pp.  171-173),  the  case  maybe  com- 
pared to  that  of  an  ambassador,  who  comes 
from  a  king  in  a  far  country  bringing  a 
communication  to  his  subjects,  which  seems 
at  first  of  so  perplexing  and  unwelcome  a 
character  that  they  are  inclined  to  doubt  his 
credentials.  But  suppose,  to  quote  an 
expression  both  of  Isaiah  and  Daniel,  a  sealed 
document  was  in  the  possession  of  the  people, 
which  was  not  to  be  opened  until  such  an 
ambassador  arrived,  and  suppose  that  on  its 
being  opened  and  read  it  was  found  to  sub- 
stantiate the  ambassador's  credentials,  no 
doubt  of  his  authority  would  then  remain. 
Prophecy  was  in  the  position  of  that  sealed 
document — or  perhaps,  we  may  say,  of  a 
document  in  cipher — which  could  not  be 
understood  until  the  key    was  supplied.     It 

E  2 


70  ITS  PRESENT  IMPORTANCE 

at  once  afforded  the  Apostles  an  adequate 
guarantee  that,  as  the  ambassadors  of 
Christ,  they  v/ere  also  the  ambassadors  of 
the  God  of  their  fathers  and  of  the  prophets  ; 
and  that  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and 
Jacob  had  sent  them,  no  less  than  He  had 
sent  Moses  formerly,  with  a  commission  from 
Himself 

In  a  word,  prophecy,  if  not  the  only 
possible  proof,  is  at  least  the  best  and  most 
effective  proof  that  the  Christian  revelation 
comes  from  that  one  living  God  who  has 
manifested  Himself  to  us  by  a  continuous 
series  of  revelations  from  the  early  patri- 
archal ages  down  to  the  time  of  our  Lord 
and  of  His  Apostles.  These  things  were 
told  us  before  they  came  to  pass,  that  when 
they  did  come  to  pass  we  might  believe. 
Let  me  further  point  out  that  even  if,  as 
some  writers,  like  Paley,  seem  to  have 
thought,  the  evidence  of  prophecy  be  in 
some  respects  of  less  crucial  importance  to 
ourselves  than  it  was  to  the  Jews  of  our 
Lord's  day  or  to  those  who  lived  in  the 
infancy  of  revelation,  yet  it  still  affords  a 
testimony  to  the  primary  and  cardinal  truths 
of  revelation  which  is  of  supreme  value. 
What    is    there   for   which    men   ask   more 


REVEALS  A  LIVING  BEING  71 

anxiously  at  the  present  day  than  for  evi- 
dence of  the  presence,  and  of  the  action  In 
the  course  of  life,  of  a  living  and  personal 
God  ?  Some  philosophers  and  men  of  science 
would  relegate  us  to  the  bare  acknowledgment 
of  some  supreme  but  unknown  energy  from 
which  all  things  have  ultimately  proceeded  ; 
but  they  allege  that  there  is  no  proof  of  its 
direct  interposition  and  control  in  the  course 
of  the  world  of  nature,  still  less  in  that  of 
life  and  history.  We  are  tempted,  under 
the  influence  of  this  philosophy,  to  acknow- 
ledge a  God  as  a  hypothesis,  an  ultimate 
law,  but  to  lose  the  apprehension  that  He 
is  the  Lord  our  God,  and  that  we  are  the 
people  of  His  pasture  and  the  sheep  of  His 
hand.  But  if  the  facts  of  prophecy  are  true, 
they  afford  us  the  most  direct  and  positive 
evidence  of  this  cardinal  truth.  We  hear  in 
them  the  voice  of  a  Being  who  has  beset  us 
behind  and  before  and  laid  His  hand  upon 
us  ;  who  has  declared  beforehand,  in  all  the 
great  crises  of  the  central  history  of  our  race, 
the  end  to  which  that  history  was  tending, 
and  the  purpose  by  which  it  was  governed. 
You  listen  to  the  declaration,  before  the 
event,  of  a  deliberate  and  a  righteous  design 
in  the  history  of  the  world,  pointing  forward 


72  ASSURANCE  TO  OURSELVES 

from  patriarchal  ages  to  the  Christian  dis- 
pensation under  which  we  now  Hve. 

There  has  been  much  dispute  whether  the 
mere  fact  of  the  adaptation  of  the  parts  of  a 
structure  to  one  end  constitutes  an  adequate 
proof  of  its  being  the  product  of  deliberate 
design  ;  but  if  you  add  to  such  an  adaptation 
the  fact  that  the  end  was  announced  at  the 
very  commencement  of  the  adaptation,  and 
that  each  advance  in  the  growth  or  develop- 
ment of  the  structure  was  similarly  announced, 
and  the  explanation  of  its  purpose  given 
beforehand,  there  can  then  surely  remain 
no  reasonable  doubt  that  the  structure  is 
the  work  of  deliberate  wisdom,  and  that  we 
are  in  communion  with  the  mind  and  will  of 
the  designer.  The  voice  of  such  prophecy 
as  that  of  the  Scriptures  is  the  unmistakable 
voice  of  the  living  Being,  by  whom  the  life 
and  the  history  which  it  predicts  are  con- 
trolled, and  it  forces  us  to  recognise,  not 
merely  the  existence  of  God,  but  His  living 
presence  and  action.  Let  me  only  add  that 
it  gives  us  an  invaluable  assurance  that  we 
ourselves  in  our  daily  lives  are  similarly  in 
the  presence  and  under  the  guidance  of  that 
living  God.  It  affords  us  a  sure  and  solid 
ground  for  our  faith  in  the  conviction  of  the 


DIVINE  OMNIPRESENCE  73 

Psalmist :  '*  Thine  eyes  did  see  my  substance, 
yet  being  unperfect,  and  in  Thy  book  were 
all  my  members  written,  which  day  by  day 
were  fashioned  when  as  yet  there  was  none 
of  them."  It  must  enable  us  to  exclaim 
with  him  :  "  Whither  shall  I  go  from  Thy 
Spirit,  or  whither  shall  I  flee  from  Thy 
presence?  If  I  ascend  up  into  heaven, 
Thou  art  there  :  if  I  make  my  bed  in  hell, 
behold,  Thou  art  there.  If  I  take  the  wings 
of  the  morning,  and  dwell  in  the  uttermost 
parts  of  the  sea,  even  there  shall  Thy  hand 
lead  me,  and  Thy  right  hand  shall  hold  me." 


IV 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE 
MESSIANIC  HOPE 

"Thy  kingdom  come." — Matt.  vi.  lo. 

"From  that  time  Jesus  began  to  preach,  and  to  say, 
Repent :  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand." — Matt. 
iv.  17. 

In  this  and  the  succeeding  lectures  it  is 
proposed  to  trace  the  development  of  pro- 
phecy from  the  seed  sown  in  patriarchal 
times  until  it  becomes  the  great  tree  under 
whose  wide-spreading  branches  the  Christian 
Church  found  its  earliest  shelter,  and  still 
finds  an  abiding  protection.  Such  an 
attempt  must  of  course  assume  the  general 
historical  trustworthiness  of  those  early 
books  of  the  Bible  in  which  the  truths  of 
Jewish  and  Christian  belief,  and  particularly 
of  Jewish  and  Christian  prophecy,  are  so 
deeply  fixed  ;  and  this  trustworthiness  may 
in  turn  derive  confirmation  from  the  veri- 
74 


JEWISH  EXPECTATION  75 

similitude  of  that  development.  Now,  it  will 
be  advantageous  in  entering  on  this  considera- 
tion of  the  course  of  prophetic  development, 
to  endeavour  to  take  at  the  outset  a  general 
view  of  the  manner  in  which  the  central  idea 
and  hope  of  all  Jewish  prophecy^ — that  of 
the  Messiah — was  gradually  aroused  in  the 
minds  of  the  people  of  Israel.  It  appealed 
to  the  deepest  and  most  familiar  conception 
of  our  Lord's  hearers,  and  we  must  bear 
this  conception  in  mind  if  we  would  under- 
stand His  position. 

It  is  a  trite  observation  that  the  Jews  at 
our  Lord's  day  were  eagerly  expecting  the 
coming  of  the  Messiah  and  the  establish- 
ment of  His  kingdom  ;  but  the  full  depth 
and  import  of  this  Messianic  expectation  is 
liable  to  be  obscured,  at  least  to  some  minds, 
by  the  undue  importance  attached  to  the 
controversial  interpretation  of  some  Mes- 
sianic texts,  and  its  intensely  moral  and 
practical  bearing  may  thus  be  lost  sight  of. 
To  appreciate  it  duly,  it  is  to  be  remembered 
that  the  whole  of  Jewish  history  starts 
from  a  promise,  and  looks  forward  to  a 
great  hope.  Independently  of  all  questions 
relating  to  the  date  of  particular  parts  of  the 
Old  Testament,  it  remains  a  fact  that  the 


76  THE  ORIGINAL  PROMISE 

time  cannot  be  shown  in  the  history  of  the 
Jews  when  they  did  not  look  back  to 
Abraham,  and  to  the  promijses  connected 
with  his  name,  as  the  germ  of  all  their  life 
and  the  prophecy  of  its  destiny.  That  in 
his  seed  all  nations  should  be  blessed — this 
throughout,  was  the  corner-stone  of  Jewish 
consciousness.  Their  God  is,  from  the  first, 
the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  not 
merely  in  the  sense  that  He  had  been  the 
God  of  those  patriarchs,  but  in  the  sense 
that  His  character  and  His  purposes  were 
those  which  He  had  revealed  to  them,  and 
that  His  truth  was  bound  up  with  the  fulfil- 
ment of  the  hopes  in  which  they  had  lived 
and  died.  The  experience  of  the  Jews  is  in 
this  respect  unique.  Other  nations  have  had 
great  hopes  in  the  future  and  have  indulged 
in  visions  of  a  great  destiny,  at  least  for  a 
time.  But  no  other  nation  had  its  whole 
existence  and  its  whole  career  based  upon  a 
specific  promise,  which  enabled  and  compelled 
it  to  look  forward  to  a  definite  destiny. 
How  that  destiny  was  to  be  fulfilled  remained, 
indeed,  mysterious  to  the  last,  and  the 
mystery  is  still  being  gradually  unveiled 
before  our  eyes.  But  that  the  promise  sub- 
sisted  as   an    immovable  corner-stone,   and 


NATIONAL  DEVELOPMENT  77 

that    the    destiny    would    be    realised,    no 
thoughtful  Jew  for  a  moment  doubted. 

Their  history,  however,  consists  of  the 
gradual  unveiling  to  them  of  the  meaning  of 
this  primary  promise  and  prophecy.  It  is  a 
prolonged  answer  to  the  question  how  the 
seed  of  Abraham  were  to  be  blessed,  and 
how  all  nations  of  the  earth  were  to  be 
blessed  in  them.  In  patriarchal  days  no 
other  blessing  is  discernible  than  that  of  a 
peaceful  pastoral  existence,  endued  with  the 
simple  wealth  of  that  mode  of  life  and  with 
all  the  happiness  of  the  family.  But  as  soon 
as  the  sojourn  in  Egypt  has  fostered  the 
children  of  Israel  into  a  considerable  nation, 
other  necessities  for  the  blessings  of  existence 
are  felt  to  be  requisite.  Then  they  become 
sensible,  by  a  bitter  experience,  of  all  the 
miseries  entailed  by  injustice,  arbitrary  power, 
and  the  luxuries  and  vices  which  are  indis- 
soluble from  an  imperfect  civilisation.  The 
superstitious  and  cruel  practices  engendered 
by  idolatry  had  brought  the  people  under  a 
severe  and  bitter  bondage,  and  had  in  great 
measure  broken  their  own  spirit  and  corrupted 
their  characters.  Never  in  their  long  history 
could  the  blessing  promised  to  their  fore- 
father   Abraham    have   seemed    further    off 


78  THE  FAITH  OF  MOSES 

than  towards  the  close  of  their  bondage  in 
Egypt.  But  the  history  of  Moses  is  evidence 
of  the  fact  that,  in  the  midst  of  this  bitter 
experience,  the  faith  of  the  greater  spirits  in 
the  old  promise  remained.  As  is  said  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  the  faith  which  rose 
to  so  great  a  height  in  Moses  animated  his 
parents.  For  "  by  faith,  when  he  was  born, 
he  was  hidden  three  months  of  his  parents, 
because  they  saw  he  was  a  proper  child,  and 
they  were  not  afraid  of  the  king's  command- 
ment." But  above  all,  by  faith  did  "  Moses, 
when  he  was  come  to  years,  refuse  to  be 
called  the  son  of  Pharaoh's  daughter,  choos- 
ing rather  to  suffer  affliction  with  the  people 
of  God,  than  to  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  sin  for 
a  season."  After  much  trial  he  is  at  length 
rewarded  by  God's  appearance  to  him  in  the 
character  of  **the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac, 
and  Jacob,"  who  would  fulfil  the  promises 
which  He  had  made  to  those  patriarchs. 
In  that  character  Moses  was  commissioned 
to  go  to  his  people,  saying  unto  them,  "  The 
Lord  God  of  your  fathers  hath  appeared 
unto  me,  saying,  I  have  surely  visited  you  ; 
.  .  .  and  I  have  said  I  will  bring  you  up  out 
of  the  affliction  of  Egypt  unto  a  land  flowing 
with  milk  and  honey."     It  is  the  old  promise, 


A  PERSONAL  DELIVERER  79 

recalled    to    their    recollection    with    a    new 
pledge  of  its  fulfilment. 

But  the  mode  of  its  fulfilment  adds  a 
further  momentous  element  in  the  experience 
and  the  intelligence  of  the  Jews.  They 
learn  that,  if  they  are  to  realise  the  promise 
made  to  their  fathers,  if  they  are  to  be 
blessed  as  a  nation  and  to  be  a  blessing, 
they  need  a  deliverer,  a  personal  deliverer — 
one  who  should,  in  the  first  place,  break  the 
power  of  their  enemies,  and,  in  the  next 
place,  be  a  guide  and  leader  to  them.  This 
personal  deliverer  they  were  taught  to  see  in 
God  Himself,  by  the  miracles,  wonders,  and 
signs  which  He  wrought  in  Egypt,  and 
which  were  performed  in  His  name  by  virtue 
of  its  solemn  invocation.  But  to  their  com- 
paratively rude  intelligence,  this  personal 
deliverance  was  in  great  measure  embodied 
in  the  character  of  Moses,  so  much  so  that, 
when  he  disappears  for  a  time  while  he  was 
with  God  in  the  mount,  they  compel  Aaron 
to  make  gods  who  shall  go  before  them  in 
his  place.  It  is  evident,  even  from  this 
offence,  how  deeply  their  bitter  experience  in 
Egypt  and  their  subsequent  deliverance  had 
impressed  upon  them  this  conviction  of  the 
need  of  a  personal  deliverer.     They  realise 


80  THE  NEED  OF  LAWS 

that,  as  a  nation,  they  cannot  be  safe  unless 
there  is  someone  at  their  head  to  unite  them, 
to  organise  them,  to  provide  for  their 
protection. 

At  the  same  time,  two  supreme  lessons 
are  impressed  upon  them.  They  are  given 
a  code  of  laws.  By  circumstances  of  most 
solemn  and  impressive  character,  they  are 
taught  that  they  can  have  no  blessing,  either 
individually  or  nationally,  except  in  obedience 
to  laws  imposed  upon  them  by  Divine 
authority.  The  full  significance  of  those 
laws  is  beyond  their  comprehension.  Such 
a  law  as  that  of  the  Sabbath  could  not,  in 
the  first  instance  at  least,  if  at  any  time, 
rest  safely  on  men's  inherent  apprehension 
of  what  is  desirable.  Other  laws,  if  not 
beyond  their  comprehension,  are  at  least  in 
opposition  to  their  passions  and  impose  a 
severe  curb  upon  their  wills.  But  they  are 
taught,  amidst  thunders  and  lightnings,  that 
the  blessings  promised  to  their  fathers  can 
never  be  enjoyed  by  them  except  so  far  as 
they  are  in  obedience  to  those  laws.  This 
leads  immediately  to  the  second  of  the  two 
great  lessons  which  are  impressed  upon 
them.  They  violate  the  laws  which  have 
been    given    them.     They    find    them    too 


ATONEMENT  AND  PRIESTHOOD       81 

severe  a  strain  upon  their  passions,  their 
patience,  and  their  faith,  and  they  are  taught 
at  once,  by  the  establishment  of  a  solemn, 
and  even  terrible,  ritual  of  sacrifices  that 
they  must  either  suffer  the  full  enforcement 
of  those  laws  upon  them  in  punishments,  and 
even  in  destruction,  or  some  amends,  some 
atonement,  must  be  made  for  their  violation. 
The  torrents  of  blood  which  were  shed  in 
the  ancient  Jewish  sacrifices  had  the  effect 
of  impressing  on  the  mind  of  the  people,  in 
the  most  vivid  manner,  the  imperative  need 
of  propitiation  for  the  violation  of  law. 
Laws  do  not  deserve  the  name  unless  they 
are  avenged  in  one  way  or  another  ;  and  the 
Jewish  sacrifices  and  the  Jewish  Priesthood, 
particularly  the  High  Priest,  are  the 
appointed  instruments  by  which,  for  tem- 
porary purposes,  that  atonement  is  made. 
Further,  they  are  made  to  feel  that  they 
need  the  continued  favour  of  God,  and  His 
constant  protection,  for  their  national  and 
personal  welfare,  and,  if  this  is  to  be  enjoyed, 
that  their  continual  sins  need  continual 
propitiation. 

Thus,  at  this  early  stage  of  their  career, 
certain  necessities  for  the  fulfilment  of  the 
patriarchal   blessing  are  already  deeply  im- 


82  LESSONS  OF  EXPERIENCE 

pressed  upon  them.  A  personal  deliverer  to 
save  them  from  their  enemies,  a  law-giver  to 
prescribe  conditions  of  life,  a  judge  to  apply 
those  laws,  the  prophetic  spirit  of  a  Moses 
to  interpret  them  to  their  consciences,  and 
finally  a  priesthood,  with  constant  sacrifices, 
to  offer  propitiation  for  their  sins — these,  it 
will  be  observed,  are  no  arbitrary  require- 
ments. They  grow  out  of  the  inevitable 
experience  of  the  nation,  as  it  is  seeking  for 
the  blessing  promised  to  its  fathers  under 
the  discipline  of  the  Divine  hand.  Blessing 
can  only  be  obtained  on  these  terms  and  in 
this  way.  Surrounded  as  they  are  by 
enemies,  liable  to  oppression  and  slavery, 
corrupted  by  sins,  and  hampered  at  every 
turn  by  their  own  ignorance  and  passion, 
they  are  brought  to  feel  the  indispensable 
necessity  of  the  functions  of  deliverer,  law- 
giver, prophet,  and  priest.  All  these  concep- 
tions, all  these  cravings,  start  into  full  vigour 
the  moment  the  nation  is  full  grown,  and  is 
brought  into  contact  with  the  stern  realities 
of  existence. 

These  personal  acts  of  salvation — for  that 
is  what  they  amount  to — bring  the  people 
through  the  most  critical  period  of  their 
existence,  and  they  are  at  length  established 


THE  DIVINE  RULER  83 

in  the  promised  land.  Here  they  seem  in 
possession  of  all  that  is  essential  to  the 
enjoyment  of  the  blessing  promised  to  their 
fathers  ;  all  material  necessities  are  provided 
for  them  in  a  land  ''  flowing  with  milk  and 
honey  "  ;  the  law,  with  adequate  guidance  in 
all  the  essentials  of  life,  a  priesthood,  with  an 
authoritative  commission  to  mediate  between 
them  and  God,  and  endued,  as  occasion 
arises,  with  supernatural  capacity  for  inter- 
preting His  will.  God  was  their  living  ruler  ; 
and,  had  they  realised  His  perpetual  presence 
and  rule  among  them,  and  lived  in  humble 
and  faithful  submission  to  it,  the  way  was 
fairly  open  for  the  gradual  and  complete 
fulfilment  of  the  promises  made  to  their 
fathers.  But  they  were  unequal  to  this 
life  of  faith,  and  are  consequently  left  to 
learn  their  necessities  through  further  sad 
experience. 

The  next  great  point  in  this  experience  is 
the  necessity  forced  upon  them,  by  their 
difficulties  and  sufferings  in  the  time  of  the 
Judges,  of  the  continuous  personal  rule  em- 
bodied in  the  office  of  a  king.  So  far  from 
there  being  anything  necessarily  wrong,  there 
was  profound  truth  in  the  craving,  which  they 
expressed  to  Samuel,  that  they  might  have  a 


84  THE  OFFICE  OF  KING 

king  to  reign  over  them.  The  error  con- 
sisted simply  in  their  failure  to  recognise  the 
fact  that  they  had  such  a  king,  that  the 
Lord  their  God  was  their  king,  and  that,  if 
they  maintained  a  due  spirit  of  faith  and 
obedience  to  Him,  they  enjoyed  in  the 
highest  form  all  the  blessing  which  a  kingly 
rule  could  give  them.  But  it  was  none  the 
less  a  perfectly  true  experience  that,  if  the 
nation  was  to  be  blessed,  if  the  old  promises 
were  to  be  realised,  if  their  God  was  the  God 
of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  and  if  their 
destiny  had  been  truly  prophesied  by  those 
patriarchs,  a  king,  a  living  king,  a  perpetual 
king,  they  must  have. 

Now,  it  is  a  peculiar  privilege  in  the 
experience  of  the  Jews  that,  whenever  a 
necessity  for  an  office  of  this  kind  is 
apprehended,  a  character  is  granted  to  the 
nation  who  brings  out  the  ideal  of  such  an 
office  with  especial  vividness.  Moses,  for 
example,  was  an  ideal  lawgiver  and  deliverer; 
Joshua  was  an  ideal  leader  in  war  ;  Samuel 
exhibits  the  highest  type  of  a  judge.  Ac- 
cordingly, in  response  to  this  craving,  the 
character  of  David  arises,  who,  notwithstand- 
ing his  grievous  sin,  nevertheless  impressed 
upon    the   minds    of    the   people    the    ideal 


THE  KINGLY  IDEAL  85 

character  of  a  king,  and  who  has  expressed 
that  ideal  in  Psalms,  which  have  embodied 
the  highest  hopes,  not  only  of  Jews,  but  of 
Christians,  and  of  the  noblest  spirits  in  the 
world.  No  question  of  Davids  personal 
merits  can  obliterate  or  alter  the  fact  that,  in 
him  and  through  him,  the  ideal  of  a  righteous 
king  is  embodied,  in  a  form  in  which  it 
fascinates  the  eyes  of  all  subsequent  genera- 
tions, or  that  his  Psalms  express  in  the 
loftiest  strains  the  characteristics  of  a  perfect 
rule.  The  loist  Psalm,  for  instance,  is 
traditionally  ascribed  to  him,  and  is  regarded 
as  embodying  the  functions  which  he  felt  to 
be  entrusted  to  him  as  king.  ''  I  will  sing 
of  mercy  and  judgment :  unto  thee,  O  Lord, 
will  I  sing.  ...  I  will  walk  within  my  house 
with  a  perfect  heart.  I  will  set  no  wicked 
thing  before  mine  eyes :  .  .  .  A  froward 
heart  shall  depart  from  me  :  I  will  not  know 
a  wicked  person.  .  .  .  Mine  eyes  shall  be 
upon  the  faithful  in  the  land,  that  they  may 
dwell  with  me  :  .  .  .  I  will  early  destroy  all 
the  wicked  of  the  land  ;  that  I  may  cut  off 
all  wicked  doers  from  the  city  of  the  Lord." 
It  is  peculiarly  observable,  with  respect  to 
the  ideal  of  a  king  thus  conceived  by  David, 
however  imperfectly  realised,  that  the  concep- 

F    2 


86  THE  PROPHETIC  OFFICE 

tions  of  power  and  warlike  success,  which 
were  the  predominant  characteristics  of  the 
royal  office  in  other  nations,  are  entirely  sub- 
ordinate to  the  office  of  asserting  and  main- 
taining righteousness.  **  Give  the  king  thy 
judgments,  O  Lord,  and  thy  righteousness 
unto  the  king's  Son;"  "he  shall  judge  thy 
people  with  righteousness,  and  thy  poor  with 
judgment" — such  was  the  idea  inherited  by 
his  son  Solomon.  Such  was  the  further 
addition  made  by  Jewish  experience  to  their 
apprehension  of  the  conditions  for  the  fulfil- 
ment of  their  ancestors'  blessing. 

Two  more  requisites  remained  to  be 
brought  out  into  full  consciousness  by  the 
national  experience.  As  the  kingly  power 
failed,  like  all  others  in  mortal  hands,  to 
fulfil  its  ideal,  the  prophetic  office  rose  into 
still  higher  importance,  as  that  of  a  living 
voice  interpreting  the  law,  and  enforcing  it 
upon  the  conscience.  Finally,  amidst  their 
own  sufferings  and  in  those  of  their  nation, 
the  prophets  discerned  in  clearer  and  clearer 
lineaments  that  vision  which  was  not  dimly 
foreseen  by  the  prophet  philosopher  of 
Greece,  of  the  sufferings  of  the  true  servant 
of  God,  the  perfectly  just  and  righteous  man, 
the  destined  deliverer  of  his  people.     To  the 


THE  SACRIFICIAL  OFFICE  87 

later  prophets  the  history  of  their  people 
must  have  seemed  like  one  long  failure. 
All  had  been  given  in  vain — the  miracles  and 
wonders  in  Egypt,  the  law,  and  the  ritual ; 
the  grand  succession  of  prophets,  priests, 
and  kings,  Moses,  Samuel,  David,  Elijah, 
all  had  apparently  lived  to  no  purpose  ;  the 
people  had  utterly  failed  to  realise  their  own 
ideals,  and  instead  of  the  blessing  promised 
to  their  fathers  they  were  enduring  the 
bitterest  misery  in  a  foreign  land.  Amidst 
this  experience,  the  conviction  seemed  forced 
upon  them  of  the  need  of  an  expiation  for 
their  sins,  by  suffering  endured  on  their 
behalf  by  their  best  representatives  ;  and  of 
a  servant  of  the  Lord,  who  by  his  patient 
submission  to  sorrow  and  death  would  bear 
a  more  powerful  and  penetrating  testimony 
to  the  will  of  God,  than  could  be  borne  by 
any  exhibition  of  power  and  awe.  So  the 
conception  arises — not  artificially  by  isolated 
and  mysterious  predictions — but  naturally, 
continuously,  and  in  the  course  of  a  living 
experience,  of  the  realisation  of  the  original 
promise  of  blessing  in  a  Divine  Kingdom, 
under  the  rule  of  a  perfect  Prophet,  a  perfect 
Priest,  and  a  perfect  King  ;  who,  in  those 
various  capacities,  should  satisfy  the  needs, 


88  A  COMPLETED  EXPERIENCE 

control  the  passions,  and  illumine  the  minds 
of  his  people,  and  overcome  their  enemies. 
His  supreme  function,  it  was  felt  by  the  most 
earnest  hearts,  would  be  that  by  all  these 
offices,  and  not  by  one  only,  he  would  save 
his  people  from  their  sins,  and  establish  a 
righteous  rule,  within  them  and  without 
them.  Accordingly,  in  the  mind  of  an 
inspired  man  like  Zacharias,  the  fulfil- 
ment of  the  ancient  hope  of  the  people 
is  expressed  in  the  words,  ''that  we  should 
be  saved  from  our  enemies,  and  from  the 
hands  of  all  that  hate  us,  to  perform  the 
mercy  promised  to  our  fathers,  and  to 
remember  His  holy  covenant  ;  the  oath 
which  He  sware  to  our  father  Abraham, 
that  He  would  grant  unto  us,  that  we,  being 
delivered  out  of  the  hands  of  our  enemies, 
might  serve  Him  without  fear,  in  holiness 
and  righteousness  before  Him,  all  the  days 
of  our  life." 

Such  in  its  main  outlines  was  the  Mes- 
sianic hope  of  the  Jews.  At  each  period  of  the 
history,  their  greatest  men  are  inspired  with 
visions  of  the  ideal  after  which  they  were 
craving ;  and  the  various  traits  of  this 
perfect  Prophet,  Priest  and  King — in  a  word, 
of  this  Messiah,  are  revealed  to  them,  and 


AN  EVOLUTION  89 

are  recorded  in  prophecy  and  song.  It  is 
of  secondary  importance  whether  particular 
texts  have  been  rightly  regarded,  by  Jewish 
or  Christian  interpreters,  as  specially  appli- 
cable to  the  Messiah.  The  Messianic  pre- 
diction, the  vision  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven,  is  rooted  in  the  very  life,  and  in  the 
intensest  experience  of  the  Jewish  people. 
It  was  inevitable  their  literature  should 
be  full  of  it ;  and  the  spirit  of  Christ, 
which  was  given  to  their  prophets,  did 
but  furnish  the  interpretation  of  these 
experiences,  and  assure  the  fulfilment  of 
these  hopes. 

This,  it  may  be  said,  is  the  sketch  of  an 
evolution — the  evolution  of  the  idea  of  the 
Messiah.  But  it  is  an  evolution  accom- 
plished throughout  by  the  hand  and  the 
voice  of  the  Evolver.  That,  perhaps,  would 
prove  to  be  the  real  character  of  any  other 
apparent  evolution.  It  consists  in  the  use 
and  application  of  natural  circumstances  and 
natural  developments  to  a  fixed  purpose, 
in  the  turn  given  at  great  crises  to  the  play 
of  natural  forces,  always  with  an  eye  to 
the  end  in  view.  In  this  case  a  Divine 
government  led  the  people  from  one  stage  of 
experience   to   another ;    first    into    Canaan, 


90  THE  CHRIST 

then  into  Egypt,  then  into  Canaan  again, 
then  into  their  relations  with  the  great 
monarchies  of  the  East ;  then  into  exile,  and 
again  to  their  own  land  for  their  final  trial. 
But  side  by  side  with  this  governing  hand 
was  the  guiding  voice,  illuminating  by  pro- 
phetic utterances  the  nature  of  each  succes- 
sive experience,  and  pointing  forward  to 
the  future.  Every  one  of  the  prophecies 
which  we  are  considering  has  thus  its 
roots  in  the  past,  its  exhortation  and  en- 
couragement for  the  present,  and  its  hope 
and  promise  for  the  future.  It  has  no  private 
or  isolated  interpretation,  and  can  only  be 
understood  in  connection  with  that  central 
idea  and  guiding  light,  the  idea  of  the 
Messiah  and  the  light  of  His  countenance, 
by  which  the  people  of  Israel  were  accom- 
panied throughout  their  mysterious  career. 
All  this  it  is,  moreover,  all  these  varied 
offices,  all  this  manifold  salvation,  for  which 
it  is  our  privilege  to  look  to  Christ.  As 
He  was  with  the  Jews,  revealing  Himself 
to  them  throughout  their  long  history,  and 
by  means  of  it,  so  let  us  be  assured  His 
hand  and  His  voice  are  with  ourselves ; 
and  if  we  will  open  our  hearts  to  Him, 
He  will   teach  us  more   and  more,  by  the 


THE  SAVIOUR  91 

experience  of  our  lives,  to  realise  that  He  is 
ever  present,  as  a  living  Saviour,  leading 
us  through  all  our  trials,  and  even  through 
all  our  sins,  to  rest,  in  entire  faith,  on  His 
salvation. 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FAITH 
IN  PROPHECY 

"  These  all  died  in  faith,  not  having  received  the  promises, 
but  having  seen  them  afar  off,  and  were  persuaded  of  them, 
and  embraced  them." — Heb.  xi.  13. 

"  These  all  died  in  faith,  not  having  received  the  promises, 
but  having  seen  them  and  greeted  them  from  afar." — R.V. 

This  is  a  passage  which  exhibits  in  its 
highest  form  a  characteristic  method  of 
scriptural  argument — the  argument  from 
facts.  In  several  critical  moments  in  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles,  for  instance,  as  in  the 
speech  of  St  Stephen,  or  in  St  Paul's  defence 
of  himself  on  various  occasions,  the  argu- 
ment consists  of  a  simple  exhibition  of  facts 
— of  the  past  history  of  the  Jewish  people, 
or  of  St  Paul's  actual  experiences  ;  and  these 
facts,  thus  placed  in  their  true  bearings,  are 
left  to  produce  their  natural  result  upon  the 
mind,  and  to  shed  their  illumination  upon 
the  question  under  discussion.     It  seems  to 

92 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  FACTS         93 

be  of  the  nature  of  what  is  called,  in  modern 
scientific  language,  the  argument  from  in- 
duction. The  facts  thus  duly  weighed  may 
not  afford  a  strict  or  logical  proof,  but  they 
bring  to  light  some  law  of  the  Divine  action, 
or  of  human  nature,  and  thus  illustrate  to  us 
what  are  the  realities  with  which  we  have  to 
deal.  "  The  analogy  of  religion,  natural  and 
revealed,  with  the  constitution  and  course  of 
nature,"  is  an  argument  of  the  same  kind. 
Such  and  such  facts  may  be  observed  in  the 
actual  working  of  the  world  in  which  we 
daily  live,  and  analogy  leads  us  to  anticipate 
their  action  in  similar  though  wider  spheres. 
Thus  the  Apostolic  writer,  in  this  chapter, 
recalls  to  the  Hebrews  whom  he  addresses  a 
long  series  of  facts,  illustrating  the  operation 
of  the  great  principle  of  faith  which  he  is 
urging  upon  them.  They  were  on  the  eve, 
or  in  the  midst,  of  a  fiery  trial,  which  would 
put  to  the  severest  test  their  allegiance  to 
their  new  profession.  They  had  need  of 
patience,  they  had  already  endured  a  great 
fight  of  afflictions,  and  another  was  immi- 
nent ;  and  the  Apostle  had  resorted  in  the 
previous  chapter  to  the  most  solemn  warnings 
drawn  from  the  perils  and  the  punishment  of 
apostasy.     '*  It  is   a    fearful  thing,"  he   had 


94  THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FAITH 

warned  them,  ''to  fall  Into  the  hands  of  the 
living  God."  But  having  done  this,  he  pro- 
ceeds, in  a  spirit  which  may  well  be  that  of 
Barnabas,  that  ''  Son  of  Consolation "  to 
whom  this  Epistle  was  in  very  early  times 
attributed,  to  urge  reasons  for  the  deepest 
comfort  and  hope  amidst  any  trials,  however 
keen  and  bitter.  For  this  purpose  he  con- 
centrates into  one  chapter  the  spirit  of  all 
Hebrew  history — or  rather  of  the  history  of 
the  servants  of  God  from  the  beginning  of  the 
world — and  thus  impresses  on  his  hearers  the 
fact,  that  they  are  not  called  to  any  excep- 
tional course  of  conduct  or  endurance,  but 
only  to  act  on  that  principle  of  faith,  as 
distinct  from  sight,  which  animated  all  the 
great  saints  of  the  past  whom  they  were 
proud  to  follow.  "  These  all,"  he  says,  ''died 
in  faith,  not  having  received  the  promises," 
but  being  assured  that  the  fulfilment  of  them 
was  reserved  for  them  hereafter.  They 
confessed  that  they  were  strangers  and 
pilgrims  on  the  earth,  and  so  declared  plainly 
that  they  were  seeking  another  country. 

Now  it  adds  peculiar  force  to  this  record 
of  facts  and  to  this  argument  to  bear  in  mind 
with  what  comprehensiveness  it  follows  the 
whole   history    of  the  people    of   God    from 


THESE  ALL  DIED  L\  FAITH  95 

the  days  of  the  patriarchs  to  the  date  at 
which  the  Apostle  wrote.  That  to  which 
the  Apostolic  writer  calls  attention  is  the  fact 
that  there  has  been  a  continuous  history, 
stretching  back  to  the  very  dawn  of  human 
life,  far  beyond  even  the  commencement  of 
Hebrew  times,  of  men  and  women  whose 
lives  were  guided,  not  by  the  circumstances 
around  them,  or  the  hopes  which  might  be 
based  upon  such  circumstances,  but  by  the 
promise  and  prophecy  of  things  afar  off  and 
as  yet  only  heard  of.  It  was  not  merely  that 
a  few  individuals  in  successive  ages  had 
exhibited  this  life  of  faith — not  only  that,  as 
in  the  heathen  world,  there  had  been  bright 
luminaries  of  truth  and  faith,  appearing  at 
intervals  to  keep  alive  the  torch  of  true 
life  and  thought.  But  there  had  been  in 
the  people  of  God  a  continuous  succession 
of  men,  handing  down  from  generation  to 
generation  the  same  hope,  and  building  up 
their  own  lives  and  the  lives  of  their  children 
upon  the  same  invisible  foundation.  It  is 
the  history  of  that  Church  of  God  which 
commenced  with  the  faithful  patriarchs,  and 
of  which  the  succession  was  continued  in  the 
line  of  Abraham  throughout  the  Jewish 
people.     One  future  hope  animated  this  long 


96       APPARENT  DEFEATS  OF  FAITH 

historic  line  of  saints  ;  and  a  whole  system 
of  human  life  was  continuously  maintained, 
of  which  this  was  the  organising  principle. 

To  do  justice  to  it,  moreover,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  this  long  history  of  faith, 
stretching  back,  if  we  go  no  further  than 
the  time  of  Abraham,  for  about  as  many 
centuries  before  Christ  as  we  are  living 
after  Christ — for  as  we  live  in  the  twentieth 
century  a.d.  so  he  lived  about  the  twentieth 
century  B.C. — this  long  history  had  been  to 
a  large  extent  one  of  continuous  disappoint- 
ment. The  experience  of  Abraham,  called 
at  the  very  culmination  of  his  hopes  to 
sacrifice  his  only-begotten  son,  and  thus 
apparently  to  forego  all  visible  realisation, 
or  means  of  realisation,  of  the  promise  on 
which  he  had  lived,  is  eminently  typical  of 
the  whole  history  of  the  Church  of  God  as 
here  recorded.  First  of  all  a  long,  and 
apparently  hopeless,  bondage  in  Egypt  of 
some  four  centuries — four  centuries  of 
absolute  eclipse  of  every  circumstance  that 
could  be  deemed  to  correspond  to  the 
promises  made  to  Abraham.  Instead  of 
any  prospect  of  possessing  the  land  of 
Canaan,  his  seed  were  bond-slaves  in  Egypt, 
under  the  tyranny  of  the  mightiest  military 


MICAH  AND  ISAIAH  97 

power  of  the  day.  Then,  when  emancipated 
from  Egypt,  they  were  wandering  for  forty 
years  in  a  wilderness.  Then  followed 
another  300  years  of  precarious  independ- 
ence and  great  national  confusion  under 
the  Judges.  At  length  the  promise  received 
some  visible  realisation  in  the  brilliant  period 
of  the  Jewish  kingdom  under  David  and 
Solomon.  Yet  this  was  but  a  brief  gleam 
of  brightness  in  the  long  agony  of  the 
people.  The  kingdom  soon  breaks  up,  and 
in  less  than  three  centuries  both  Israel  and 
Judah  became  the  prey  of  the  great  military 
monarchies  of  Assyria  and  Babylonia.  They 
had  apparently  been  placed  in  possession  of 
the  promised  land  only  to  be  deprived  of  it 
again ;  and  there  was  certainly  no  visible 
means  of  their  restoration. 

Yet  the  old  hope  was  still  kept  alive  and 
raised  to  even  greater  heights.  The  prophet 
Micah  describes  in  one  passage  the  circum- 
stances of  desolation  which  were  imminent. 
"  Therefore,"  he  says,  ''  for  the  iniquity  of  the 
people  shall  Zion  ...  be  plowed  as  a  field, 
and  Jerusalem  shall  become  heaps,  and  the 
mountain  of  the  house  as  the  high  places 
of  the  forest."  But  having  thus  seen  in 
prophetic  vision,  so  soon  to  be  realised,  the 

G 


98  FAITH  IN  THE  PROMISE 

royal  city  of  David  with  its  palaces  levelled 
to  the  ground  and  ploughed  as  a  field, 
Jerusalem  in  ruins,  and  the  sacred  mountain 
of  the  temple  of  Jehovah  no  longer 
thronged  by  worshippers  coming  up  from 
every  part  of  the  land,  but  lonely  and 
deserted  as  the  peaks  of  Hermon,  the 
prophet  immediately  turns  to  another  and 
more  distant  scene,  to  which  he  looks 
forward  with  a  confidence  undiminished  by 
the  bitter  experiences  of  the  present.  *'  In 
the  last  days  it  shall  come  to  pass,  that  the 
mountain  of  the  house  of  the  Lord  shall  be 
established  in  the  top  of  the  mountains,  and 
it  shall  be  exalted  above  the  hills ;  and 
people  shall  flow  unto  it.  And  many 
nations  shall  come,  and  say.  Come,  and  let  us 
go  up  to  the  mountain  of  the  Lord,  and  to 
the  house  of  the  God  of  Jacob  ;  and  he  will 
teach  us  of  his  ways,  and  we  will  walk  in 
his  paths  :  for  the  law  shall  go  forth  of  Zion, 
and  the  word  of  the  Lord  from  Jerusalem. 
And  he  shall  judge  among  many  people,  and 
rebuke  strong  nations  afar  off  .  .  .  for  the 
mouth  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts  hath  spoken 
it."  It  was  in  those  dark  and  desperate 
moments  of  the  Jewish  state  that  these 
briljiant   promises    were    proclaimed.     They 


FAITH  OF  THE  CHURCH  99 

are  reiterated  word  for  word  by  Isaiah,  and 
through  the  five  centuries  which  followed 
they  were  the  beacon  of  the  nation's  hopes. 
Nothing  sufficed  to  destroy  their  force  and 
their  encouragement,  and  we  know,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  that  at  the  time  when  our 
Lord  appeared  there  were  many  devout 
souls  waiting  for  the  consolation  of  Israel, 
living  on  the  inheritance  of  these  promises. 

But  another  still  more  bitter  experience 
was  to  come.  When  the  seed  came  to 
whom  the  promise  was  made,  when  the  king 
of  Israel,  in  whose  person  all  these  assur- 
ances were  to  be  fulfilled,  came  to  his  temple, 
when  the  lav/  began  to  go  forth  of  Zion,  and 
the  word  of  the  Lord  from  Jerusalem,  in 
that  sense  which  has  since  been  fulfilled  so 
wonderfully  in  the  Christian  dispensation — 
the  first  experience  was  again  one  of  bitter 
disappointment.  *' We  trusted,"  said  the 
desponding  disciples  after  the  Crucifixion, 
"that  it  had  been  he  which  should  have  re- 
deemed Israel "  ;  and  even  those  who 
believed  in  His  Resurrection  had  still  to 
endure  the  intense  trial  of  seeing  their 
Lord's  hand  withheld  and  His  arm  appar- 
ently shortened,  and  of  being  called  upon  to 
submit    in    their    own  persons  to  sufferings 


100  THINGS  NOT  SEEN 

and  contempt  like  His  own.  It  was  in 
weakness  and  in  suffering  that  for  several 
generations  the  saints  of  the  Christian 
Church  carried  on  the  tradition  of  the 
Jewish  Church,  finding  no  recognition  in 
this  world  of  their  hopes,  and  seeking  for 
another  country. 

It  is  essential,  if  we  would  appreciate 
the  function  of  prophecy,  that  we  should 
bear  in  mind  the  evidence  thus  afforded 
that  the  principle,  by  which  the  truth  and 
trust  of  which  we  are  the  inheritors  has  been 
maintained  in  the  world,  has  never  been  one 
of  demonstration,  but  that  of  hope  and  faith, 
resting  on  promises  believed  to  be  divine. 
Even  since  the  time  when  Christianity 
became  predominant  in  a  portion  of  the 
world,  the  condition  of  things  around  it  and 
within  it  has  been  in  a  large  degree  too 
similar  to  that  by  which  the  Jewish  Church 
was  surrounded.  The  great  promises  of  the 
New  Testament  have  seemed  but  partially 
fulfilled.  Wickedness  has  abounded,  and 
the  love  of  many  has  waxed  cold  ;  and  it  is 
even  now  a  reproach  against  the  Gospel  that 
it  spreads  so  slowly,  and  that  its  influence  is 
so  inadequate  to  its  claims.  Take  external 
circumstances   alone,    and   there   have   been 


THE  SOURCE  OF  FAITH  101 

comparatively  few  periods  of  time,  or  regions 
of  the  world,  in  which  those  circumstances 
have  been  sufficient  to  lend  substance  to 
Jewish  or  to  Christian  hopes.  Sometimes 
the  apparent  defeat  of  those  hopes  has 
been  overwhelming ;  and  there  are  not 
obscure  intimations  in  the  New  Testament 
that  a  time  is  in  store  for  the  Christian 
Church  when  it  may  encounter  external 
defeat  and  oppression,  not  dissimilar  to  that 
which  the  Jews  underwent  at  the  darker 
periods  of  their  history. 

What  was  it  then  that  sustained  the  people 
of  God  through  all  the  trials  we  have  been 
reviewing.'^  The  very  facts  we  have  been 
considering  remind  us  that  it  was  not  by 
the  continuous  manifestation  of  supernatural 
powers,  or  by  frequent  supernatural  signs, 
that  the  faith  of  the  ancient  fathers  was  thus 
sustained.  For  long  centuries,  natural  forces 
were  left  undisturbed  and  uninterfered  with, 
to  oppress  and  crush  them.  Circumstances, 
mere  facts,  were  as  adverse  to  their  expecta- 
tions as  the  ambassador  of  the  King  of 
Assyria  once  urged  that  they  were.  The 
text  states  what  was  the  real  source  of  their 
spiritual  life.  They  lived  upon  promises. 
Prophets   like    Micah    and    Isaiah    came   to 

2    G 


102  LIVING  ON  PROMISES 

them  from  time  to  time,  with  the  declaration 
that  the  mouth  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts  had 
uttered  such  and  such  assurances,  that  He 
had  renewed  the  promises  of  a  thousand 
generations ;  and  these  promises  became 
more  and  definite,  as  time  drew  on,  until  (as 
explained  in  the  last  lecture)  a  distinct 
expectation  of  a  Messiah,  to  arise  from  the 
house  of  David  and  to  be  born  at  Bethlehem, 
and  to  be  the  deliverer  of  His  people  from 
all  their  evils,  became  the  positive  assurance 
on  which  they  relied.  But  it  was  always  a 
promise,  no  more,  although  authenticated  in 
an  increasing  degree  by  the  measure  of 
fulfilment  which  had  been  realised  in  the  case 
of  the  older  prophecies.  It  was  a  promise 
uttered  by  the  mouth  of  prophets  who  were 
often,  like  Micah  and  Jeremiah,  in  the  most 
humble  and  humiliating  circumstances,  and 
in  whose  favour  and  attestation  the  Divine 
hand  was  but  partially  and  occasionally 
exerted.  But  these  prophets  came  to  the 
people  from  time  to  time  with  the  unqualified 
and  unhesitating  assurance  that  they 
brought  a  message  from  the  Most  High. 
''  Hear,  O  heavens,"  says  Micah's  co- 
temporary,  "and  give  ear,  O  earth:  for  the 
Lord    hath    spoken.  .  .  .  The    ox   knoweth 


GROUNDS  OF  BELIEF  103 

his  owner,  and  the  ass  his  master's  crib  : " 
and  it  was  Israel's  part,  likewise,  to  know 
their  Creator,  and  to  recognise  their  Master's 
voice.  These  were  the  promises  which  the 
true-hearted  people  of  Israel  gradually 
embraced,  greeting  them  (as  the  text  has 
been  translated)  from  afar,  and  in  which  they 
found  sufficient  support  through  all  their 
desperate  trials.  Through  such  a  long 
period  of  distress,  for  instance,  as  the 
Captivity,  there  was  nothing  but  these 
promises,  handed  down  from  generation  to 
generation,  to  sustain  the  faith  of  the  people. 
But  they  were  sufficient.  The  people  were 
convinced  that  they  had  the  promise  and 
assurance  of  the  Lord  God  of  their  fathers, 
and  they  believed  it  and  acted  on  it  through 
any  apparent  discomfiture. 

It  is  instructive  to  inquire,  why  did  they 
believe  it  ?  There  must  have  been  some- 
thing inherently  convincing  in  the  prophecy, 
or  the  mode  of  its  deliverance,  to  produce  so 
profound  and  enduring  an  effect.  They 
believed  it  because  it  commended  itself  to 
them  as  the  voice  of  God.  The  true  hearts 
among  them  recognised,  by  that  instinct 
which  the  prophet  Isaiah  compares  to  the 
instinct    of  animals    towards    their    master, 


104         THE  VOICE  OF  CONSCIENCE 

man,  that  the  prophet  spoke  the  truth  when 
he  said  that  he  brought  a  message  from 
God,  and  that  the  promise  they  heard  was  a 
divine  promise.  As  has  been  said,  it  was  by- 
no  means  ahvays  attested  by  miraculous 
signs.  Such  attestation  was  from  time  to 
time  afforded  as  need  might  require.  But 
for  the  most  part,  the  prophet's  witness 
stood,  so  to  say,  on  its  own  merits  ;  and  just 
as  we  know  the  voice  of  our  fellows  when 
they  address  us,  so  those  to  whom  the 
prophetic  message  came  were  able,  in  propor- 
tion to  the  soundness  and  purity  of  their 
moral  and  mental  instincts,  to  recognise  the 
voice  which  spoke  by  the  prophets  as  that 
of  God. 

One  characteristic  of  it  we  may  at  once 
perceive.  It  was  invariably  associated  with 
the  voice  of  their  conscience.  It  was  con- 
tinually reasserting  truths  which  they  had 
been  neglecting,  and  duties  which  they  had 
been  violating.  It  was  the  echo  of  that 
which  they  knew  was  the  Divine  voice 
within  their  own  souls,  and  thus  carried  its 
authentication  in  their  own  hearts.  Add  to 
this  that  its  threats  and  promises  were,  from 
time  to  time,  sufficiently  verified  in 
experience    to   convince    them    that    it   pro- 


A  DIVINE  VOICE  105 

ceeded  from  the  ruler  of  heaven  and  earth, 
and  these  influences  alone  might  have 
sufficed  to  induce  them  to  submit  themselves 
to  it,  in  proportion  to  the  truth  and  simplicity 
of  their  hearts.  The  voice  itself  was  and  is, 
in  the  first  instance,  its  own  witness.  There 
is  something  in  the  voice  of  God  which  to  an 
uncorrupt  mind,  in  proportion  as  it  is 
uncorrupt,  is  unmistakable.  The  words  of 
Amos  vividly  express  the  main  reason  why  the 
voice  of  God  commands  this  belief  and  sub- 
mission. *'  The  lion  hath  roared,  who  will 
not  fear  ?  the  Lord  God  hath  spoken,  who  can 
but  prophesy?  "  The  psalm  quoted  by  the 
author  of  this  Epistle  warns  men  against 
hardening  their  hearts,  and  that  dreadful 
possibility  is  in  every  man's  power.  But  if 
a  man's  heart  be  not  hardened,  the  word  of 
God,  the  voice  of  God,  will  bespeak  the 
awful  being  from  whom  it  proceeds,  as  our 
voices  betray  our  characters,  or  as  the  lion's 
roar  bespeaks  a  mightier  force  than  that  of 
ordinary  nature.  Dryden  has  to  some  extent 
expressed  this  truth  in  his  famous  lines  : — 

"  Then  for  the  style,  majestic  and  divine, 
It  speaks  no  less  than  God  in  every  line : 
Commanding  words,  whose  force  is  still  the  same 
As  the  first  fiat  that  produced  our  frame." 


106      A  VOICE  IN  THE  WILDERNESS 

The  Bible  and  the  prophets  are  thus  their 
own  best  witness ;  there  is  a  voice  there 
which  asserts  itself  above  all  the  noise  of 
doubt  and  controversy,  and  above  all  the 
contradictions  of  human  arguments,  and 
which  compels  men  to  recognise  that  they 
are  in  the  presence  of  the  living  God.  Then, 
as  they  listen,  this  voice  reveals  them  more 
and  more  to  themselves,  penetrating  their 
consciences,  convincing  them  of  sin,  of 
righteousness  and  of  judgment,  and  they 
tremble,  and  listen  still  further.  This  indeed 
is  the  characteristic  which  is  always  pre- 
dominant in  it.  But  it  was  these  voices — 
often,  as  is  vividly  described  in  the  case  of 
John  the  Baptist,  like  the  mere  voice  of  one 
crying  in  the  wilderness  —  by  which  the 
trust  of  the  faithful  was  sustained  through 
centuries  of  bitter  disappointment ;  and  it 
was  the  force  of  promises  which  enabled  them 
to  live  a  life  of  trust  in  the  Unseen. 

Moreover,  as  has  been  forcibly  shown  by 
one  of  the  most  eminent  of  recent  writers 
on  Old  Testament  prophecy  in  Germany, 
Dr  Riehm,  in  his  work  on  Messianic 
Prophecy,  the  assurances  of  the  prophets 
were  rooted  in  the  fundamental  conceptions 
and     truths     of    Jewish    revelation.       The 


THE  DIVINE  COVENANT  10^7 

primary  truth,  which  was  at  the  base  of 
the  life  of  the  whole  nation,  and  still  more 
of  every  thoughtful  Jew,  was  that  God  had 
entered  into  a  covenant  between  the  nation 
and  Himself.  To  the  nation  that  covenant 
had  been  sealed  by  the  grand  act  of  redemp- 
tion from  Egypt,  which  was  to  the  Jew  that 
which  the  redemption  wrought  by  our  Lord's 
Death  and  Resurrection  is  to  ourselves  ;  and 
God's  relation  to  each  Jew  was  stamped  upon 
his  very  flesh  by  the  sign  of  circumcision. 
The  deep  conviction  created  by  that 
deliverance,  and  by  this  personal  sacra- 
mental sign,  dominated  his  whole  existence  ; 
and,  in  proportion  to  his  lofty  and  awful 
conception  of  the  nature  of  God,  he  was 
assured  that  God  must  make  that  covenant, 
in  an  ever-increasing  degree,  a  living  reality. 
He  might  fail,  but  God  would  not ;  God 
had  pledged  His  own  honour  and  power 
to  the  fulfilment  of  all  which  that  covenant 
implied ;  and  consequently,  when  prophet 
after  prophet  renewed  the  assurance  that 
God  would  fulfil  it,  the  heart  of  the  Jew 
responded  with  a  deep  Amen  of  belief 
and  hope. 

It  was  the  same   with   the  truth    of  the 
divine    kingship    over    Israel.       The    con- 


108  THE  DIVINP:  IDEALS 

viction  that  the  Lord  their  God  was 
their  king,  if  for  a  moment  clouded  when 
they  sought  for  an  earthly  king,  was 
never  lost ;  and  if  God  was  their  king,  it 
was  inconceivable  that  He  should  not  in 
some  way,  and  at  some  time,  assert  His 
kingship,  manifest  His  power  within  Israel 
itself  and  to  the  world,  enforce  His  laws, 
execute  judgment  and  justice,  and  fulfil  the 
ideal  which  the  Psalms  depict  of  the  perfect 
king.  Finally,  the  Jewish  institutions,  the 
institutions  of  the  priesthood  and  of  sacrifices, 
bear  vivid  witness  to  ideals,  without  the 
realisation  of  which  they  would  have  been 
almost  mockeries.  For  this  reason,  as 
Riehm  observes,  the  very  disappointments 
on  which  I  have  dwelt  became  themselves 
roots  of  the  faith  of  the  people,  and  induced 
them  to  lend  a  ready  ear  to  the  assurances 
of  the  prophets.  Such  truths,  such  hopes, 
such  ideals,  as  they  had  been  granted  could 
not  be  permanently  disappointed  ;  and  con- 
sequently they  clung  with  ever  -  increasing 
tenacity  to  assurances,  marked  by  those 
divine  stamps  of  which  I  have  spoken,  that 
they  would  hereafter  be  realised.  Without 
such  prophetic  voices  indeed  the  disappoint- 
ment would  have  been  too  great ;  but  when 


THE  CHRISTIAN  LIFE  109 

they  were  met  in  their  falls,  their  defeats, 
their  despondencies,  by  gracious  voices, 
which  promised  them  deliverance  and  the 
fulfilment  of  their  ideals,  and  when  those 
voices  had  that  divine  tone  in  them  which 
we  have  been  considering,  they  could  not 
but  spring  up  at  their  encouragement  and 
follow  them.  Thus  it  was,  let  me  repeat, 
in  all  these  ways,  that  these  voices — some- 
times, as  has  been  said,  like  the  mere 
voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness  — 
sustained  the  life  of  the  faithful  through 
those  long  centuries  of  doubt ;  and  it  was 
by  the  force  of  prophecies  that  they  were 
enabled  to  endure,  as  seeing  that  which 
was  invisible. 

We  are  reminded,  moreover,  in  to-day's 
Epistle  that  this  characteristic  of  the  life  of 
God's  ancient  people  is  also  the  chief  stay 
and  comfort  of  the  Christian  life.  ''What- 
soever things,"  says  St  Paul,  "  were  written 
aforetime  were  written  for  our  learning, 
that  we,  through  patience  and  comfort  of 
the  Scriptures,  might  have  hope  ;  "  and  so  we 
pray  in  the  Collect  that  "by  patience,  and 
comfort  of  God's  holy  word,  v/e  may  embrace 
and  ever  hold  fast  the  blessed  hope  of 
everlasting    life    which     he    has    given    us 


110      THE  DIFFICULTIES  OF  FAITH 

through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord."  It  may 
perhaps  be  questioned  whether  the  difficuhies 
of  faith  are  not  comparatively  as  great  at 
the  present  time,  in  some  respects,  as  in  the 
days  of  the  prophets.  There  is  a  greater 
revelation  of  the  extent,  the  intensity,  and  the 
persistency  of  evil  than  was,  perhaps,  open 
to  the  eyes  of  any  one  at  that  time.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  promises,  on  which 
the  patriarchs  of  old  relied,  have  received,  in 
many  respects,  a  fulfilment  which  affords  us 
a  stronger  guarantee  of  their  divine  reality 
than  any  evidence  they  could  then  appeal 
to.  It  is  probable  that  the  call  made  upon 
faith  has  been  much  the  same  in  every 
generation ;  the  claims  and  evidences  of 
faith,  on  the  one  hand,  and  its  opposing 
difficulties,  on  the  other,  being  adjusted  to 
our  capacities  by  God's  merciful  hand.  But 
in  the  main,  when  confounded  by  the 
problems  presented  by  the  evils  of  the 
world  or  our  own  troubles,  it  is  upon  the 
promises  of  the  Saviour  and  of  his  Apostles 
that  we  must  rely  ;  it  is  on  them  that  we  must 
ever  fall  back.  The  question  of  faith,  both 
with  respect  to  the  general  evidences  of  the 
gospel  and  with  respect  to  our  private  trials, 
is  ultimately  this  :  Can  we  trust  the  Saviour's 


THE  ASSURANCES  OF  LENT  111 

promises  in  His  word  ?  Arguments  on 
Christian  evidences  may  be  of  value  for 
the  removal  of  preliminary  difficulties,  but 
they  can  never  do  more  than  bring  us  face 
to  face  with  the  Saviour  Himself  and  His 
Apostles,  and  enable  us  to  face  the  simple 
question  whether  we  will  trust  Him ;  and 
then,  to  the  Christian  heart,  the  answer  is 
always  the  same  :  **  Lord  to  whom  shall  we 
go  ?     Thou  hast  the  words  of  eternal  life." 

Let  me  add,  as  this  is  the  first 
Sunday  in  Lent,  that  it  is  our  privilege 
in  our  private  lives  to  use  these  voices  for 
our  elevation  and  encouragement,  when, 
in  the  contemplation  of  the  sins  of  which 
this  season  reminds  us,  we  too  feel  our 
defeats  and  our  failures,  and  our  lament- 
able falling  short  of  our  ideals.  We  too  are 
in  covenant  with  God  ;  we  too  have  a  Divine 
Lord  and  King  who  desires  to  bring  us 
into  harmony  with  His  perfect  rule  ;  and  for 
His  own  sake  He  will  fulfil  the  promises 
and  hopes  He  has  held  out  to  us,  if  we,  in 
reliance  on  those  promises,  will  but  return  to 
Him  continually  with  a  true  heart,  in  full 
assurance  of  faith.  Let  us  not  be  dis- 
couraged in  our  falls  and  failures ;  but, 
though   our   full   deliverance   from  evil   can 


112  RENEWAL  OF  LIFE 

only  be  seen  in  the  distance,  let  us  be 
persuaded  of  those  promises  and  embrace 
them,  and  in  the  persuasion  of  that  divine 
embrace,  renew  our  moral  and  spiritual 
life. 


VI 


PROPHECY   AND    THE    KINGDOM 
OF    HEAVEN 

"  From  that  time  Jesus  began  to  preach,  and  to  say, 
Repent ;  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand." — Matt. 
iv.  17. 

In  the  two  preceding  lectures,  I  have 
endeavoured  to  illustrate  two  critical  points 
in  the  nature  and  the  development  of  the 
main  features  of  prophecy  ;  first,  the  manner 
in  which  the  vision  of  the  divine  kingdom 
and  the  Divine  Messiah  arose  gradually,  out 
of  the  actual  experience  of  the  Jev/ish  people, 
in  the  various  vicissitudes  of  their  history  ; 
secondly,  the  manner  in  which  the  prophetic 
word  interpreted  that  experience  to  them, 
step  by  step,  sustaining  their  hopes  and 
deepening  their  faith,  amidst  the  various 
temptations,  falls,  and  trials  which  they  had 
to  encounter.  Under  this  combined  influ- 
ence of  experience  and  prophecy,  experience 

118  II 


114  THE  DIVINE  KINGDOM 

supplying  the  materials  which  prophecy 
interpreted,  the  constituent  elements  of  the 
great  conception  of  a  perfect  divine  kingdom, 
under  a  Divine  Messiah,  had  combined  to 
create  a  general  expectation,  which  existed 
at  the  time  our  Lord  appeared  among  the 
Jews.  Step  by  step,  they  had  learnt  the 
necessity  for  their  welfare,  both  individually 
and  socially,  of  laws  by  which  they  should 
be  directed  and  controlled,  of  a  prophet  to 
interpret  those  laws  and  bring  them  home 
to  their  conscience,  of  a  king  to  enforce 
and  uphold  them,  and  to  protect  them  by 
his  power  from  their  enemies,  and  of  a 
priest  to  mediate  between  them  and  the  law- 
giver whom  they  have  offended,  and  to  make 
atonement  by  sacrifices  for  their  trespasses 
and  sins.  All  these  offices,  moreover,  as 
was  more  and  more  clearly  illustrated  by 
the  prophets,  came  to  be  recognised  as 
essentially  divine.  God  alone  could  be  the 
true  lawgiver  of  the  people ;  God  alone 
could  adequately  interpret  His  own  laws ; 
a  Divine  Saviour  alone  could  adequately 
make  atonement  for  their  sins  ;  and  a  Divine 
King  alone  could  effectually,  and  with  perfect 
justice,  enforce  His  laws,  and  protect  His 
people  from  the  enemies  and  evils  by  which 


THE  KINGDOM  AT  HAND  115 

they  were  surrounded.  When,  then,  our 
Lord  and  his  forerunner  came  forward  to 
utter  the  final  prophecy  of  the  Jewish  dis- 
pensation, and  to  announce  that  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  was  at  hand,  what  they 
proclaimed  was  that  these  great  offices 
were  about  to  be  fulfilled.  The  Divine  King 
who,  in  the  image  of  the  parable,  had,  as 
it  were,  retired  into  a  far  country,  was  about 
to  return.  His  laws  were  about  to  be 
enforced ;  they  were  to  be  explained  and 
urged  home  on  the  conscience  by  a  Divine 
voice  ;  and  the  Divine  priest  would  make  an 
atonement  for  his  people.  The  announcement 
of  the  approach  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
implied  that  it  was  at  hand  in  its  reality 
and  efficacy.  Its  laws  would  take  effect, 
its  judgments  would  be  executed,  and  its 
mercies  would  at  the  same  time  be  revealed. 

Such  was  the  prophecy ;  let  us  proceed 
to  compare  it  with  its  fulfilment,  and  then 
consider  some  of  the  lessons  the  comparison 
affords  as  to  the  function  and  practical 
character  of  prophecy.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
what  was  it  that  ensued  upon  this  announce- 
ment of  our  Lord  ?  He  at  once  proceeded 
by  direct  discourse,  such  as  that  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  by  indirect  instruction 


116  ITS  PROCLAMATION 

such  as  that  of  His  parables,  to  declare 
anew,  and  with  more  explicitness,  the  laws 
of  the  Divine  Kingdom  ;  to  illustrate  with  a 
prophetic  force,  never  before  or  afterwards 
exhibited,  their  profound  spiritual  meaning, 
and  to  warn  His  hearers  that  their  enforce- 
ment by  Divine  judgments  was  inevitable. 
He  took  up  the  old  laws,  the  old  Scriptures, 
treating  them  as  the  eternal  expressions 
of  the  Divine  will,  and  expounded  them  in  all 
their  spiritual  breadth  and  penetration  ;  and 
He  declared  that  the  day  was  coming  when 
He  would  enforce  them,  in  this  deep  spiritual 
sense,  against  all  who  had  not  obeyed  them 
in  actual  practice.  "Not  everyone"  He 
declared,  "  that  saith  unto  Me,  Lord,  Lord, 
shall  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ;  but 
he  that  doeth  the  will  of  My  Father  that  is  in 
heaven."  By  such  declarations  and  appeals 
as  these.  He  brought  home  to  the  consciences 
of  all  classes  the  meaning  and  the  severity 
of  the  Divine  laws  which  they  outwardly 
acknowledged.  Some  rebelled  against  such 
teaching,  and  some  repented  at  it.  The 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  rejected  the  counsel 
of  God  against  themselves,  while  many 
of  the  publicans  and  the  sinners  accepted 
it.     But  it   was  felt  that  the  voice  of  God 


REJECTION  OF  THE  KING  117 

was  among  them,  wielding  the  two-edged 
sword  of  His  word,  piercing  to  the  dividing 
asunder  of  the  very  soul  and  spirit,  and  dis- 
cerning the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the 
heart.  Here  was  the  Divine  Prophet  mani- 
festly standing  before  them,  bringing  home 
God's  words  and  God's  laws  to  their  souls — 
a  new  power,  in  short,  was  among  them,  the 
great  Prophet  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven 
was  at  hand. 

The  manner,  moreover,  in  which  He  was 
received,  and  its  consequences,  led  to  the 
manifestation  of  another  grand  element  in  the 
constitution  of  the  Divine  Kingdom.  The 
people,  as  a  whole,  with  their  leaders,  rejected 
Him,  and  thus  committed  the  greatest  sin 
which  history  records,  a  sin  in  which  the  evil 
of  the  human  heart  manifested  itself  in  its 
worst  and  most  fearful  form.  The  Divine 
Prophet  of  all  truth  and  justice  had  appealed 
to  their  hearts,  and  they  had  rebelled  against 
Him.  He  had  appealed  in  the  most  various 
tones,  in  language  of  persuasion,  of  expostu- 
lation, of  indignation,  of  tenderness  as  well 
as  of  anger.  Every  word  that  He  spoke 
breathed  truth  and  light  and  love,  but 
because  this  truth,  light,  and  love  rebuked 
the  darkness  and  hatred  of  their  own  hearts, 

2    H 


118         OUR  LORD'S  SELF-SACRIFICE 

they  hated  Him,  and  determined  to  drive  it 
from  them  and  to  crush  It.  They  took 
counsel  to  put  Him  to  death.  He  was  their 
King  and  their  God,  and  it  was  in  His 
power,  instead  of  being  crushed  by  them,  to 
crush  them.  It  was  only  to  be  expected,  it 
would  have  been  In  accordance  with  all 
principles  of  justice,  that  they  should  be 
at  once  overwhelmed  by  his  righteous  judg- 
ments, and  punished  with  everlasting  de- 
struction. When  men  reject  truth  and  light 
itself  as  incarnate  in  our  Lord,  they  oppose 
themselves  to  the  eternal  truth  and  will  of 
God,  and  nothing  remains  in  the  ordinary 
course  of  nature,  but  that  they  should  suffer 
the  inevitable  penalty.  But,  at  this  stage, 
our  Lord,  instead  of  defending  and  asserting 
Himself  by  power,  chose,  by  an  act  of  infinite 
condescension,  to  suffer  His  enemies  to  inflict 
their  hatred  and  violence  upon  Him. 
Instead  of  putting  them  to  death.  He 
submitted  to  be  put  to  death  by  them,  and 
thus  He  himself  suffered  the  penalty  which 
their  evil  necessarily  involved. 

When  truth  and  light  and  love  are  in 
deadly  conflict  with  falsehood,  darkness,  and 
hatred,  some  terrible  convulsion  must  ensue, 
some  victim  must  be  sacrificed.     This    was 


THE  SHEDDING  OF  BLOOD  119 

what  the  greatest  of  the  ancient  prophets 
depicted  so  clearly  in  his  description  of  the 
servant  of  God  who  was  despised  and  rejected 
of  men,  who  was  wounded  for  our  transgres- 
sions and  bruised  for  our  iniquities,  who 
poured  out  his  soul  unto  death,  and  bare 
the  sin  of  many,  and  made  intercession  for  the 
transgressors.  All  the  power  of  God  was  and 
is  on  the  side  of  right  and  truth,  but  before 
asserting  it  by  force  our  Saviour  resolved 
to  let  the  awful  effect  of  sin  and  falsehood 
be  directed  against  Himself,  and  thus  to 
afford  in  His  own  person  the  awful  example 
which  justice  required  of  the  natural  conse- 
quences of  sin.  He  thus  became  at  once 
the  Victim  and  the  Priest  of  a  supreme  and 
divine  sacrifice  for  evil.  Sin  requires  and 
extorts  its  sacrifices  day  by  day,  and  some 
supreme  sacrifice  was  needed  for  the  sin  of 
the  whole  world,  exhibited,  as  that  sin  was 
in  its  highest  form,  in  the  rejection  of  our 
Lord  by  His  own  people.  The  incessant 
bloodshed,  day  by  day  and  year  by  year,  of 
the  ancient  Jewish  ritual,  was,  after  all,  but 
too  true  an  illustration,  as  we  have  lament- 
able reason  to  know,  of  that  perpetual  shed- 
ding of  human  blood,  by  which,  under  the 
present  constitution  of  things,  the  progress 


120    THE  PROPHET  AND  THE  PRIEST 

of  the  world  is  maintained  ;  and  it  was  at 
the  same  time,  the  most  impressive  of  all 
prophecies,  in  pointing  forward  to  the 
shedding  of  that  sacred  blood,  respecting 
which  the  Apostolic  writer  exclaims  :  "How 
much  more  shall  the  blood  of  Christ,  who, 
through  the  eternal  spirit,  offered  Himself 
without  spot  to  God,  purge  your  conscience 
from  dead  works  to  serve  the  living  God  ?  " 
This  element,  therefore,  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  was  also  at  hand,  and  was  realised. 
After  the  prophet  came  the  priest ;  after  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  by  a  natural  develop- 
ment, by  the  simple  action  and  reaction  of 
human  sin  and  divine  graciousness,  came 
the  sacrifice  of  Calvary  ;  and  thus,  less  than 
three  years  after  our  Lord's  announcement 
that  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  was  at  hand, 
these  momentous  elements  of  the  divine 
constitution  of  things  were  fully  manifested. 
Henceforth  the  Divine  Prophet,  through  His 
recorded  words  and  by  means  of  His  spirit, 
has  been  ever  exerting  His  penetrating  and 
purifying  influence  upon  our  hearts,  and  the 
Divine  Priest  has  made  the  one  sufficient 
oblation  and  satisfaction  for  the  sins  oi^  the 
whole  world. 

There  remains  the  third  function,  that  of 


THE  KINGDOM  MANIFESTED         121 

the  king.  This  office,  moreover,  our  Lord 
conspicuously  exerted  during  His  Hfe  on 
earth.  By  His  miracles.  He  manifested 
His  possession  of  complete  command  over 
all  the  forces  of  nature.  Even  the  winds 
and  the  waves,  the  constitution  of  the  human 
frame,  the  spiritual  and  the  natural  world, 
obeyed  Him,  and  He  showed  that  He  could 
command  all  the  elements  at  His  will.  He 
established,  moreover,  a  Society  of  which 
He  was  and  is  the  Lord,  and  of  which 
His  will  is  the  sole  rule.  After  His  death 
He  rose  again,  declaring  that  all  power  was 
given  unto  Him  in  heaven  and  in  earth ; 
and  His  possession  of  the  same  power, 
after  His  ascension  to  heaven,  was  mani- 
fested by  the  performance  in  His  name,  by 
His  Apostles,  of  precisely  the  same  works 
of  healing  and  of  judgment  as  those  which 
He  Himself  executed  when  He  was  upon 
earth.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  since  that 
time,  in  His  own  words,  the  kingdom  of 
God  is  preached  and  every  man  presseth 
into  it.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  has 
existed  since  that  time  a  Society  in  which 
Christ  is  the  recognised  ruler,  in  which 
His  will  is  acknowledged  to  be  the  supreme 
law,  in  which  He  is  recognised  as  at  once 


122  THE  CHURCH 

the  supreme  Priest  and  the  supreme  Sacrifice, 
the  mediator  between  man  and  God,  and 
the  propitiation  for  our  sins — a  Society  which 
is  united  by  His  ordinances  and  inspired 
by  His  spirit,  and  which  confidently  looks 
forward  to  the  future  assertion  of  His  final 
authority  by  a  last  judgment.  It  existed 
thenceforth  as  the  greatest  visible  reality 
by  which  the  world  since  our  Lord's  day 
is  distinguished  from  the  world  before  it. 
Though  more  or  less  disorganised  by  the 
sins  of  its  subjects,  and  imperfectly  realised, 
it  is  still  a  real  Kingdom,  owning  the  rule  of 
one  King,  and  looking  to  him  for  all  the 
functions  necessary  for  the  welfare  of  the 
kingdom  as  a  whole  and  its  individuals  in 
particular. 

This  was  the  sequel,  and  the  immediate 
consequence,  of  our  Lord's  life  on  earth. 
It  was  this  which  followed  in  a  few  short 
years  upon  His  proclamation  and  upon 
that  of  His  forerunner.  There  is  no 
clearer  and  more  momentous  example  of 
the  fulfilment  of  prophecy.  A  voice  was 
heard  in  the  deserts  of  Judsea  proclaiming 
that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  was  at  hand  ; 
the  prophet  by  whom  it  was  uttered  was 
soon  thrown  into   prison  and  silenced  ;   but 


THE  PROPHECY  FULFILLED         123 

the  message  was  reiterated  by  one  whom 
he  had  announced  as  about  immediately  to 
follow  him  ;  it  was  repeated  by  that  greater 
voice  throughout  the  land  of  Israel,  and  in 
two  or  three  years  it  was  fulfilled  to  the 
letter ;  the  long  and  eager  expectations 
entertained  by  the  Jewish  people  of  the 
advent  of  their  Prophet,  Priest,  and  King 
were  realised,  and  His  kingdom  was  actually 
established  in  the  hearts  of  men,  and  realised 
in  a  visible  society. 

Nothing  can  assist  us  so  much  to  appreci- 
ate at  once  the  reality  and  the  spiritual 
character  of  prophecy,  as  to  realise  the 
relation  between  this  culminating  prophecy 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  and  its  immediate 
fulfilment.  We  have  only  to  recall  the 
circumstances  of  the  times  in  order  to 
appreciate  the  supreme  prescience  which 
the  prophecy  reveals.  Observe  the  strong 
contrast  between  the  external  appearance 
of  things  as  they  presented  themselves  to 
human  eyes  and  the  reality  as  proclaimed 
by  our  Lord.  An  uninspired  observer  of 
the  world,  at  that  time,  would  have  had 
his  attention  chiefly  engrossed  by  the  vast 
historic  drama  which  was  being  enacted — 
the    complete   establishment   and   extension 


124  THE  VISIBLE  REALITIES 

over  the  world  of  the  Roman  Empire ;  in 
Judaea  itself  the  confused  political  struggles 
between  Herod  and  the  Priesthood  and  the 
Roman  Authorities  ;  and  his  attention  would 
soon  have  been  engaged  by  the  external 
aspects  of  the  terrible  tragedy  which  followed, 
in  the  overthrow  of  the  Jewish  polity  and 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem.  The  minds 
of  men  were,  for  the  most  part,  engrossed 
in  these  external  and  temporal  affairs.  But 
what  was  really  happening  was  that  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  was  at  hand.  The 
Divine  Lord,  the  King,  the  Prophet,  and 
Priest  of  men,  was  displaying  His  authority, 
and  exercising  a  ministry,  which  was  to  be 
the  turning-point  of  hum.an  history ;  and 
the  fate  of  the  Jews  themselves  depended 
upon  the  manner  in  which  they  received 
Him.  Their  rejection  of  Him  was  the 
consequence  and  the  manifestation  of  that 
utter  corruption  of  heart  and  mind,  v/hich 
produced  those  intestine  dissensions  which 
rendered  them  the  inevitable  prey  of  the 
Roman  power ;  and  their  sins  thus  drew 
upon  them,  in  another  generation,  their 
natural  punishment,  in  the  most  fearful 
sufferings.  But  little  as  it  was  recognised 
by  the   natural   eye,  whether   of  statesmen 


THE  INVISIBLE  REALITIES  125 

or  historians,  the  real  key  to  the  public 
and  external  history  of  the  world  lay  in 
the  manifestation  and  operation  of  that 
Kingdom  of  God,  which  attracted  so  little 
attention  in  the  world  around.  The  one 
message  which  required  attention,  and  which 
would  have  saved  the  Jews,  even  at  that 
moment,  was  the  message  of  repentance, 
in  view  of  the  appearing  of  that  kingdom. 
Could  they  have  bowed  their  hearts  before 
their  Lord  as  their  prophet  and  their  priest, 
even  at  that  moment — even  at  that  last 
hour  if  the  hearts  of  the  disobedient  had 
turned  to  the  wisdom  of  the  just,  their 
sins  might  have  been  checked  before  they 
had  reached  so  fearful  a  development.  But 
because  they  neglected  this  deep  spiritual 
message,  they  were  necessarily  given  over 
to  increasing  corruption,  until  their  doom 
fell  upon  them. 

So  had  it  been  throughout  the  long  years 
of  their  history  as  the  people  of  God.  To 
an  external  observer  in  the  days  of  the 
prophets,  the  great  monarchies  with  which 
they  were  surrounded,  the  mighty  powers 
of  Egypt,  or  of  Babylonia,  or  Assyria,  were 
the  main  factors  in  the  history  of  the  time. 
But  voices  like  those   of  John   the  Baptist 


126  THE  FINAL  REALITY 

were  heard,  sometimes  in  the  deserts,  some- 
times in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem  or  Samaria, 
warning  them  that  the  one  great  reality 
with  which  they  were  concerned,  and  on 
which  their  whole  destiny  depended,  was 
the  will  of  God,  their  King  and  Lord : 
that,  if  they  would  return  to  Him  in  re- 
pentance and  obedience,  they  might  be  saved  ; 
but  that,  if  not,  their  sins  and  corruptions 
would  be  left  to  work  out'  their  natural 
consequences,  and  that  they  would  fall  under 
the  sword  and  the  tyranny  of  their  oppressors. 
The  kingdom  of  God,  the  rule  of  God,  was 
the  great  reality  behind  all  this  visible  scene, 
controlling  and  determining  its  results.  Its 
influence  was  manifested  from  time  to  time 
in  some  great  judgment,  and  it  came  nearer 
and  nearer.  At  length  in  the  time  of  our 
Lord  its  final  approach  was  proclaimed ; 
it  entered  into  the  world  in  its  complete 
reality,  and  its  judgments  were  enforced 
upon  God's  own  people. 

Moreover,  we  are  called  upon  to  recognise 
that  the  essential  position  in  which  we  stand 
at  this  day  is  the  same,  and  to  repent,  in  the 
sense  of  turning  our  minds,  hearts,  and  souls 
to  these  eternal  realities.  So  far  as  the 
course  of  the  world  itself  is    concerned,  we 


PRESENT  REALITIES  127 

are  warned  by  prophets  and  Apostles  that, 
through  all  the  apparent  external  vicissitudes 
of  men  and  of  affairs,  God  is  steadily- 
advancing  the  great  purposes  of  His  king- 
dom, and  guiding  everything  to  that  grand 
consummation,  when  all  the  kingdoms  of 
this  world  shall  become  the  kingdoms  of  our 
Lord  and  of  His  Christ.  The  convulsions 
of  nations,  the  progress  of  discovery,  the 
influences  of  literature — all  are  tending  to 
the  same  great  result,  to  make  the  person, 
the  character,  and  the  will  of  Christ  more 
widely  known,  and  to  lead  to  the  general 
establishment  of  His  authority.  The  King- 
dom of  Heaven  stands  behind  this  visible 
scene  at  the  present  day,  as  it  did  in  the  time 
of  the  Jews ;  and  it  will  some  day  stand 
revealed,  as  it  did  after  their  time,  as  the  one 
great  force  of  history. 

For  each  of  us  individually,  the  call  to 
repentance  involves  a  call  to  recognise  our 
relation  to  this  Divine  King,  this  Divine 
Prophet  and  Priest,  as  the  one  eternal  reality 
of  our  lives.  We  play  our  parts  here,  from 
year  to  year,  in  the  various  occupations  which 
He  has  given  us,  serving  Him  in  the  develop- 
ment of  one  part  or  another  of  His  purposes. 
But  these  are  only  the  particular  behests  in 


128  PERSONAL  REALITIES 

which  our  faithfulness,  our  love,  and  our  trust 
towards  Him  are  being  tried  and  developed. 
They  will  pass,  with  those  bodies  which  are 
our  instruments  in  discharging  them.  The 
question  then  will  be  how  far  we  have  done 
His  will,  and  have  lived  in  His  true  faith 
and  fear.  Let  us,  while  striving  to  do  our 
duty  in  them  all,  as  His  servants,  yet  have 
our  eyes  ever  fixed  upon  Him,  as  the  eyes  of 
servants  upon  the  hand  of  a  master,  turning 
inwardly  from  this  external  world,  and  living, 
in  the  abiding  realisation  of  His  presence, 
for  Him  alone.  Then  may  we  look  forward, 
with  hope  and  confidence  and  joy,  to  the 
final  realisation  of  His  kingdom,  in  that  last 
day  of  the  Lord,  when  His  judgments  and 
His  mercies  shall  alike  be  finally  revealed. 

Such  is  the  aspect  of  prophecy  considered 
as  a  whole  and  in  its  main  current  and  pur- 
pose. Its  application  in  detail,  especially  by 
the  writers  of  the  New  Testament,  forms 
a  separate  subject  of  great  importance, 
which  I  hope  to  consider  in  subsequent 
lectures.  But  as  we  view  it  in  reference 
to  its  goal,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end, 
prophecy  presents  itself  clearly  as  the  one 
clue  to  the  labyrinth  of  history.  Beginning 
with  but  slight  threads  in  early  patriarchal 


THE  CLUE  TO  HISTORY  129 

times,  it  has  sufficed  to  lead  those  who  traced 
it,  through  the  long  and  mysterious  windings 
of  Divine  providence,  to  the  open  space  of 
Christian  light,  and  Christian  life,  in  which 
we  stand  at  the  present  day.  While  men 
were  working  at  a  thousand  objects  of  their 
own,  founding  empires,  developing  commerce, 
elaborating  philosophies,  with  their  eyes 
closed  to  all  but  the  immediate  material  and 
intellectual  and  temporal  interests  in  which 
their  energies  were  absorbed,  the  Divine 
purpose,  which  had  been  indicated  from  the 
first  in  the  family  of  Abraham,  was  working 
silently  towards  its  own  ends,  and  gradually 
using  for  its  purposes  all  the  other  elements 
and  creations  of  human  energy  and  thought. 
It  was  concerned  mainly  with  that  moral  and 
religious  principle,  on  the  vitality  of  which 
ultimately  depends  the  whole  fabric  of  human 
society.  That  moral  and  religious  principle 
is  the  seed  of  which  our  Lord  spoke,  which 
at  first  is  the  least  of  all  seeds,  but  when  it 
is  grown  it  becomes  a  great  tree  and  the 
fowls  of  the  air  lodge  in  the  branches  thereof. 
As  prophecy  appeals  to  this  principle,  so 
it  is  only  in  proportion  as  men's  hearts 
are  alive  to  it  and  to  its  supremacy,  that 
they  are  prepared  to  recognise  and  to  follow 

I 


130         THE  ONE  THING  NEEDFUL 

the  voices  of  the  prophets  when  addressed  to 
them.  It  was  because  most  of  the  Jews  of 
our  Lord's  day  were  alive  to  everything 
except  that  moral  and  religious  principle, 
alive  to  their  own  temporal  interests,  but  not 
to  the  need  of  repentance,  that  they  failed  to 
acknowledge  the  voice  of  our  Lord,  and  that 
the  Kingdom  of  God  was  consequently  carried 
forward  to  its  final  establishment,  against 
them,  and  not  by  means  of  them. 


VII 

THE  USE  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 
PROPHECY  IN  THE  NEW  TESTA- 
MENT 

"  Now  all  this  was  done,  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which 
was  spoken  of  the  Lord  by  the  prophet."— Matt.  i.  22. 

To  Christians,  who  submit  to  our  Lord's 
teaching  as  of  supreme  authority,  and  who 
accept  the  writings  of  EvangeHsts  and 
Apostles  as  inspired,  the  use  of  Ancient  Pro- 
phecy in  the  New  Testament  must  afford 
decisive  guidance  ;  while,  at  the  same  time, 
the  fresh  series  of  prophecies  afforded  by  the 
New  Testament  fall,  in  some  respects,  better 
within  the  range  of  our  observation  and 
judgment  than  many  of  those  in  the  Old 
Testament.  In  respect  both  to  the  use  of 
Ancient  Prophecy  and  to  the  gift  of  New 
Prophecy,  the  New  Testament  is  perfectly 
continuous  with  the  Old  ;  and  no  interpreta- 
tion of  prophecy  can  be  compatible  with  the 
claims  of  the  Christian  faith  which  is  not  in 


132     HIGHEST  POINT  OF  PROPHECY 

harmony  with  that  of  our  Lord,  and  of  the 
Evangelists  and  Apostles.  If  it  should  be 
requisite,  as  some  seem  to  have  thought,  to 
explain  away  the  use  of  the  Old  Testament 
by  the  Evangelists,  or  to  apologise  for  it, 
they  may  still  afford  us,  of  course,  invaluable 
instruction,  but  their  authority  as  inspired 
teachers  would  be  gone,  and  some  of  the 
cardinal  positions  of  Christian  belief  would 
have  to  be  reconsidered.  It  is  of  the  highest 
importance  to  us,  therefore,  alike  for  our  own 
spiritual  instruction,  and  for  the  defence  of 
our  Christian  position,  to  understand  their 
point  of  view,  to  be  satisfied  of  its  reason- 
ableness, and  of  its  harmony  with  the  whole 
analogy  of  our  faith.  It  must  reveal  to  us, 
as  nothing  else  can,  the  real  Christian  prin- 
ciples of  the  interpretation  of  prophecy.  At 
the  same  time,  in  prophecies  uttered  by  our 
Lord,  and  by  His  Apostles,  we  may  expect 
to  see  prophecy  at  its  highest  point  of  de- 
velopment. They  themselves  tell  us  that,  in 
their  utterances,  the  last  word  of  prophecy 
has  been  spoken,  and  that  we  have  simply 
to  look  for  its  gradual  unfolding  and  ultimate 
development.  In  a  word,  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament we  have,  from  the  Christian  point 
of  view,  at  once   the  highest  interpretation 


ST  MATTHEW'S  FIRST  WORDS      133 

of  prophecy,  and   the   highest   examples  of 
prophecy. 

In  the  present  lecture  it  is  on  the  first  of 
these  subjects — the  Interpretation  of  pro- 
phecy In  the  New  Testament — that  it  is 
proposed  to  offer  some  observations  ;  and 
this  subject  can  hardly  be  examined  in  a 
more  crucial  instance  than  in  the  Gospel  of 
St  Matthew — in  such  expressions,  for  in- 
stance, as  that  which  is  familiar  to  us  at 
Christmas.  ''  Now  all  this  was  done  that  it 
might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  of  the 
Lord  by  the  prophet,  saying,"  etc.  St 
Matthew,  it  is  clear,  wrote  primarily  for  his 
fellow  Jews,  and  his  account  of  the  Gospel  is 
specially  adapted  to  meet  their  position  and 
their  beliefs.  The  opening  words  of  his 
Gospel,  which  are  too  often,  perhaps,  passed 
over  as  a  mere  summary  of  a  genealogy,  are 
among  the  most  pregnant  words  in  the  New 
Testament,  and  must  have  embodied  to  a 
Jew  the  whole  of  his  past  history  and  of  his 
present  and  future  hopes.  *'  The  book  of 
the  generation  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of 
David,  the  Son  of  Abraham."  Those  words 
told  the  Jew,  at  once,  that  in  Jesus,  whose 
birth  and  life  and  death  the  Evangelist  was 
about    to    narrate,    would    be    found    The 

I    2 


134  A  GOSPEL  TO  JEWS 

Christ,  the  Messiah  for  whom  he  and  his 
whole  nation  had  been  longing  for  centuries, 
the  King  who  had  been  promised  of  David's 
Royal  Line,  the  descendant  of  the  Patriarch 
in  whom  it  had  been  promised  that  all 
nations  of  the  earth  should  be  blessed.  The 
whole  of  Jewish  history  and  the  profoundest 
beliefs  of  the  nation  are  flashed  before  the 
mind  of  a  Jew  in  that  brief  phrase.  It  was 
as  much  as  to  say  to  him  :  "  Listen  as  I 
proceed  to  tell  you  how  the  promises  made 
to  Abraham,  and  the  oath  which  was  sworn 
unto  David,  are  at  last  fulfilled ;  how  the 
Divine  unction  has  at  last  fallen  upon  the 
heir  of  that  great  line,  and  how  the  Prophet, 
Priest,  and  King  of  your  nation  stands  re- 
vealed." That,  we  may  venture  to  say,  was 
the  only  way  in  which  a  Gospel  to  the  Jews 
could  begin.  To  a  Gentile  it  might  be 
enough  to  tell  him  of  a  Divine  Saviour  in 
human  form.  A  Gospel  for  him  might 
commence,  like  that  of  St  Mark,  with  the 
declaration  :  ''  The  beginning  of  the  Gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God."  But  to  a 
Jew  there  could  be  no  revelation  which  was 
not  in  harmony  with  his  old  revelations,  and 
which  was  not  a  fulfilment  of  them.  If  he 
was  to  accept  a  Messiah  who  was  the  Son  of 


THAT  IT  MIGHT  BE  FULFILLED     135 

God,  that  Messiah  must  be  also,  as  a  first 
condition,  the  Son  of  David  and  the  Son  of 
Abraham.  Thus,  in  this  short  phrase,  does 
the  EvangeHst  at  once  sum  up  the  whole  of 
his  Gospel,  and  at  the  same  time  indicate  to 
us  the  prophetic  point  of  view  from  which  he 
presents  it. 

Accordingly  he  goes  on,  in  passage  after 
passage,  to  illustrate  the  manner  in  which 
the  prophecies  of  the  past,  their  promises 
and  experiences,  had  been  fulfilled  in  the 
person  and  the  work  of  the  Christ  whom  he 
proclaimed.  At  His  birth,  all  that  came  to 
pass  was  done  ''that  it  might  be  fulfilled 
which  was  spoken  of  the  Lord  by  the  pro- 
phet, saying,  Behold,  a  virgin  shall  be  with 
child,  and  shall  bring  forth  a  son,  and  they 
shall  call  his  name  Emmanuel."  He  was 
born  at  Bethlehem,  "for  thus  it  is  written 
by  the  prophet,  And  thou,  Bethlehem,  in  the 
land  of  Juda,  art  not  the  least  among  the 
princes  of  Juda,  for  out  of  thee  shall  come  a 
Governor,  that  shall  rule  My  people  Israel." 
His  parents  had  to  flee  into  Egypt  "that  it 
might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  of  the 
Lord  by  the  prophet,  saying,  Out  of  Egypt 
have  I  called  My  Son."  His  escape  was  the 
occasion  of  the  slaughter  of  the  children  of 


136     THAT  IT  MIGHT  BE  FULFILLED 

Bethlehem,  in  which  ''  was  fulfilled  that  which 
was  spoken  by  Jeremy  the  prophet,"  of 
Rachel  weeping  for  her  children.  He  came 
and  dwelt  in  a  city  called  Nazareth,  *'that  it 
might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  by  the 
prophets  :  He  shall  be  called  a  Nazarene." 
When  the  time  came  for  Him  to  enter  on 
His  public  ministry,  He  was  preceded  by 
John  the  Baptist,  preaching  in  the  wilderness 
of  Judsea,  ''and  saying,  Repent  ye,  for  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  " — the  kingdom  to  which 
all  the  prophets  had  looked  forward — "is  at 
hand.  For  this  is  he  that  was  spoken  of  by 
the  prophet  Esaias,  saying,  The  voice  of  one 
crying  in  the  wilderness,  Prepare  ye  the  way 
of  the  Lord."  He  opened  His  ministry  at 
Capernaum,  '*  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which 
was  spoken  by  Esaias  the  prophet,  saying. 
The  land  of  Zabulon  and  the  land  of  Neph- 
thalim,  .  .  .  Galilee  of  the  Gentiles,  the 
people  which  sat  in  darkness  saw  great 
light."  He  charged  the  people,  after  His 
deeds  of  mercy,  that  they  should  not  make 
Him  known,  "  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which 
was  spoken  by  Esaias  the  prophet,  saying. 
Behold  My  servant,  whom  I  have  chosen. 
.  .  .  He  shall  not  strive  nor  cry  ...  a 
bruised  reed  shall  He  not  break,  and  smok- 


THE  EVANGELISTS  VIEW  137 

Ing  flax  shall  He  not  quench."  His  parables 
are  in  harmony  with  another  prophecy  of 
Esaias,  which  said,  ''  By  hearing  ye  shall 
hear,  and  shall  not  understand  ;  and  seeing 
ye  shall  see,  and  shall  not  perceive."  When 
He  entered  into  Jerusalem  before  His  pas- 
sion, ''all  this  was  done  that  it  might  be 
fulfilled  which  was  spoken  by  the  prophet, 
saying.  Tell  ye  the  daughter  of  Zion,  Behold, 
thy  King  cometh  unto  thee,  meek  and  sitting 
upon  an  ass."  In  His  betrayal,  and  the 
price  put  upon  it,  "was  fulfilled  that  which 
was  spoken  by  Jeremy  the  prophet."  His 
final  words  on  the  cross  fulfilled  an  utterance 
of  the  Psalms  ;  and  His  last  words  before 
He  left  the  earth  are  a  solemn  declaration 
that  that  kingdom  of  God,  which  He  had 
begun  by  proclaiming,  was  finally  established. 
''  All  power  is  given  unto  Me  in  heaven  and 
in  earth." 

These  characteristic  passages  from  the 
Evangelist  have  been  recited  in  order  that 
we  may  have  before  our  minds,  not  merely 
some  particular  instances  of  alleged  prophecy 
and  its  fulfilment,  but  the  whole  spirit  and 
purpose  of  his  message.  The  impression 
which  they  leave  is  not  that  the  Evangelist 
is  seeking  for  prophecies   to  which  he  can 


138  A  WORLD  OF  PROPHECY 

appeal  in  support  of  his  cause,  but  that  his 
mind  is  moving  in  a  world  of  prophecy  which 
is  familiar  to  those  for  whom  he  writes,  and 
that  he  notices  naturally,  in  passing,  one 
point  after  another  in  which  the  life  and  the 
Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  answer  to  it  and  fulfil 
it.  He  does  not  stay  to  prove  his  instances  ; 
his  reference  is  sometimes  vague  and  general ; 
it  may  be  enough  for  him  to  say,  generally, 
'*  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken 
of  the  Lord  by  the  prophets,"  without  speci- 
fying which,  or  their  particular  words.  It 
is  like  the  case  of  a  man  looking  at  the 
picture  of  some  great  scene  he  has  witnessed, 
and  saying  to  his  companion:  ''There  is 
such  a  point  in  the  landscape,  and  there  is 
another  " — a  hill,  or  a  stream,  or  a  house,  or 
a  familiar  face — except  that  here  the  position 
is  reversed,  and  the  Evangelist  is  looking  at 
the  reality,  and  recalling  points  in  the  pro- 
phetic picture  which  he  and  his  readers  had 
long  been  contemplating.  Before  them  is 
the  picture,  at  last  realised,  even  to  many  of 
its  minute  details;  and  the  Evangelist  lingers, 
even  amidst  the  absorbing  interest  of  the 
real  life  and  character  he  is  describing,  over 
those  features  which  help  to  assure  him  that 
he  has    at    length    found   what   he  and   his 


HEREDITARY  LIKENESSES  139 

fellows  had  so  long  looked  for — all  the  more, 
perhaps,  because  in  some  cases  such  features 
are  of  the  nature  of  those  slight  touches 
which  cannot  be  artificial,  and  which  bespeak 
what  is  genuine  and  natural. 

In  other  words,  the  conviction  in  which 
the  Evangelist's  mind  moves  is  that  the 
whole  history  and  prophecy  of  the  past, 
all  through  those  three  series  of  fourteen 
generations  which  he  enumerates  —  from 
Abraham  to  David,  and  from  David  to 
the  carrying  away  into  Babylon,  and 
from  the  carrying  away  into  Babylon  to 
the  Christ  —  had  been  one  continuous 
growth,  steadily  unfolding  the  germ  from 
which  it  started  ;  and  that  as  the  traits  of 
the  father  and  of  the  father's  father  are  to 
be  seen  in  the  son,  so  the  principles  and  the 
methods,  and  even  the  external  character- 
istics of  past  Jewish  life  and  thought  are 
reproduced  in  this  final  birth  of  the  sacred 
history.  If  you  would  understand  and  do 
justice  to  him,  you  must  not  begin  by  con- 
centrating your  attention  on  a  few  secondary 
particulars,  questioning  this,  that,  and  the 
other  small  details  :  you  must  look  at  his 
principle  and  his  position  as  a  whole ;  and 
then  you  may  judge  whether  the  details  are 


140       THE  LIKENESS  AS  A  WHOLE 

in  harmony  with  it  and  are  justified  by  it. 
Is  it  not  a  common  matter  of  experience  that 
a  number  of  details  in  a  story,  or  inferences 
in  an  argument,  may  seem  strained  and  un- 
natural if  you  begin  with  them,  and  look  at 
them  one  by  one  independently  ?  But  when 
the  story  or  the  argument  is  viewed  as  a 
whole,  you  see  their  naturalness  ;  they  fall 
into  their  places,  and  incidental  points  of 
verisimilitude  which,  standing  alone,  you 
would  have  regarded  as  fanciful  and  worth 
very  little,  become  some  of  the  most  vivid, 
life-like,  and  convincing  features  of  the  whole 
transaction. 

Such  is  the  spirit  in  which  St  Matthew 
writes,  and  the  cardinal  principles  of  Jewish 
history  and  prophecy  are  his  vindication. 
On  those  principles,  the  whole  of  that  history 
had  been  guided  by  one  Divine  will,  and 
moulded  by  one  Divine  hand,  towards  one 
great  goal — the  establishment  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  among  men,  under  the  rule  of  One 
who  is  both  God  and  man.  The  way  had 
been  prepared  for  it ;  the  race  in  and  through 
whom  it  was  to  be  established  had  been 
disciplined  and  educated.  Great  spiritual 
and  moral  truths  had  to  be  planted  in  their 
souls,   before   they  could  produce  represen- 


PROLONGED  BIRTH  OF  TIME        141 

tatlves  capable  of  a  mission  such  as  was 
entrusted  to  Apostles  and  Evangelists.  For 
that  purpose,  they  not  merely  had  to  undergo 
certain  painful  experiences — the  captivity  in 
Egypt,  conflict  with  bitter  enemies,  severe 
temptations  and  consequent  defections,  exile 
and  oppression — but  they  needed  to  be  lifted 
and  sustained  from  time  to  time  by  Divine 
guidance  and  comfort ;  above  all,  by  glimpses 
of  the  goal  towards  which  they  were  tending, 
sufficient  to  assure  them  that  all  they  were 
suffering  and  experiencing  was  in  harmony 
with  their  ultimate  destiny,  and  that  the 
Person  who  would  at  length  be  manifested 
as  the  Captain  of  their  salvation  was  one 
with  them  in  their  nature  and  their  struggle, 
though  infinitely  superior  to  them.  Such 
was  the  combined  effect  of  Jewish  history 
and  prophecy,  growing  as  experience  grew, 
and  brightening  under  an  ever-increasing 
illumination.  What  is  recorded  for  us  in 
the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament  is  not 
a  mere  natural  history,  interrupted  from  time 
to  time  by  isolated  prophetic  voices,  but  one 
grand  birth  of  time — the  prolonged  travail 
pangs  of  the  daughter  of  Israel  giving  birth 
to  her  Messiah,  sustained  by  continuous 
Divine    assurances    of    the    blessed    issue, 


142         REHEARSAL  AND  REALITY 

constantly   increasing  in  clearness  and    cer- 
tainty. 

In  this  long  travail,  moreover,  the  essential 
circumstances  remain  the  same,  or  similar, 
from  age  to  age  :  the  comparative  insignifi- 
cance of  Israel  ;  the  great  military  monarchies 
by  which  she  was  surrounded  ;  the  necessity 
of  a  flight  into  Egypt  or  a  sojourn  in  the 
wilderness ;  the  unexpected  appearance  of 
some  deliverer,  born,  it  might  be,  in  a  humble 
station,  but  bringing  God  and  God's  help 
once  more  near  to  the  people  in  their  sin 
and  distress ;  or  a  prophet  deserted  and 
betrayed,  wounded  in  the  house  of  his 
friends,  and  put  to  death.  As  this  experience 
grew  and  the  light  of  prophecy  brightened, 
the  vision  and  the  conviction  grew  also  that 
all  this  was  but  the  rehearsal  of  a  great  and 
final  reality ;  that  the  divine  kingdom,  for 
which  all  this  was  a  preparation,  would  at 
length  be  established  by  a  Member  of  the 
great  representative  line,  who  would  combine 
all  the  experiences  through  which  the  nation 
itself  had  passed — in  an  humble  and  unex- 
pected birth,  in  a  lowly  state,  in  flight, 
persecution,  temptation,  struggle,  betrayal, 
and  death,  but  gaining  at  length  the  final 
victory,   for  Himself  and   for   the  people  of 


ANALOGIES  OF  PAST  AND  PRESENT  143 

God,    and    establishing    for    ever   a   divine 
kingdom. 

This  is  the  root  from  which  the  whole 
thought  of  an  Evangelist  springs  who 
proclaims  a  gospel  for  Jews.  The  Christ's 
wonderful  birth  and  His  Divine  nature  had 
been  foreshadowed  by  the  mysterious  words 
of  the  prophet — that  a  virgin  should  conceive 
and  bear  a  Son,  and  that  His  name  should 
be  called  God  with  tis.  Those  mysterious 
words  had  unquestionably  been  uttered 
centuries  before  ;  that  marvellous  name  had 
been  given ;  and  whatever  it  may  have 
referred  to  in  the  prophet's  time,  here  at 
least  was  a  reality  which  answered  to  it.  If 
He  had  to  flee  into  Egypt,  so  had  the  nation 
done  in  its  early  distress  ;  if  His  escape  had 
been  accompanied  by  the  slaughter  of  the 
Innocents,  so  had  many  a  Jewish  mother  in 
past  times  bewailed  her  innocent  children, 
slaughtered,  in  the  course  of  God's  mysterious 
purposes,  by  the  ruthless  Assyrian  or  Baby- 
lonian invader  ;  if  He  was  to  live  at  Nazareth 
and  share  the  reproach  of  a  despised  people, 
had  it  not  been  foreseen  that  the  Servant  of 
God  would  be  a  mere  branch  or  shoot,  of  no 
form  or  comeliness,  despised  and  rejected  of 
men,    so    that    the    general    effect    of  the 


144  THE  IJVLNG  PARALLEL 

predictions  concerning  Him  was  that  He 
should  be  no  better  than  a  Nazarene?  In 
the  same  way,  did  not  our  Lord's  whole 
career — the  manner  in  which  He  was 
heralded  by  a  voice  in  the  wilderness,  His 
union  of  gentleness  with  power,  the  mysterious 
nature  of  His  teaching,  and  eventually  the 
character  of  His  betrayal  and  of  His  suffer- 
ings— recall  the  visions  of  ancient  prophets 
and  the  experiences  of  ancient  saints  ? 
What  they  had  seen  and  what  they  had  felt, 
however  dim  and  mysterious  in  their  case, 
had  been  fulfilled  in  Him  ;  and  so,  as  the 
living  parallel  passes  before  the  Evangelist's 
eye,  and  the  deep  spiritual  similitude  is  fixed 
on  his  mind  by  the  Spirit  who  inspired  him, 
the  exclamation  rises,  as  it  were  involuntarily, 
to  his  lips — sometimes  in  view  of  a  profound, 
and  sometimes  of  an  almost  external,  resem- 
blance— "that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which 
was  spoken  of  the  Lord  by  the  prophet." 

In  fact,  if  we  are  to  appreciate  the  use  of 
prophecy  in  the  New  Testament,  the  truth 
appears  to  be  that  we  must  directly  reverse 
the  aspect  of  the  matter  which  is  too  often 
pressed  upon  us  from  a  mere  human  point  of 
view.  We  are  told  that  the  prophets  looked, 
in     th^     first     instance,     to     something     in 


VISION  OF  THE  FUTURE  145 

immediate  relation  to  the  events  of  their  day, 
and  to  the  circumstances  with  which  they 
were  deaHng,  and  that  the  primary  meaning 
of  prophecy  is  to  be  sought  in  those  contem- 
porary events,  although  from  them  it  may, 
in  some  instances,  be  extended — some  say 
by  way  of  type,  some  by  a  sort  of  double 
sense — to  the  final  Messianic  realities.  But, 
in  the  view  of  the  New  Testament  writers, 
that  which  was  primarily  vouchsafed  to  the 
prophet  was  a  vision,  or  a  glimpse,  of  the 
ultimate  reality,  of  the  final  purposes  of  God, 
of  His  ultimate  judgment,  of  His  final  salva- 
tion, of  the  character  of  the  Person  through 
whom  that  salvation  was  to  be  wrought,  of 
His  sufferings,  and  of  the  glory  which  should 
follow.  In  proportion  as  that  great 
Deliverer,  that  final  judgment,  and  that 
ultimate  salvation,  gleamed  for  a  while  upon 
the  prophet's  eye  did  their  light  and  their 
example  illuminate  the  present,  and  was  he 
enabled  to  see  the  purpose  and  the  will  of 
that  Saviour  and  that  Judge  in  respect  to 
the  events  and  the  struggles  of  his  own  time. 
To  the  prophet,  in  short,  it  was  the  great 
reality  of  the  future  which  illuminated  the 
present ;  it  was  not  merely  a  few  sparks  of 
light  from  the  present  which  enabled  him  to 

K 


146    IMMANUEL  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

penetrate  the  dim  and  distant  future.  After 
all,  we  may  well  observe  this  striking  and 
unquestionable  fact,  that  the  chief  difficulties 
in  connection  with  a  prophecy  like  that  of 
Immanuel  relate  to  its  meaning  in  the  past 
rather  than  to  its  applicability  in  the  present. 
The  birth  of  Christ  and  the  work  of  Christ 
are,  beyond  question,  aptly  described  by  the 
words  which  the  Evangelist  quotes  from 
Isaiah ;  but  commentators  of  all  schools, 
conservative  or  critical,  old  and  new,  are  in 
much  perplexity  and  confusion  as  to  the 
reference  which  the  words  may  bear  to  any 
event  in  the  time  of  Isaiah  himself.  What- 
ever such  contemporary  reference  they  may 
have  had,  it  seems  to  baffle  our  present 
knowledge  and  resources  ;  but  that  the  Son 
of  the  Blessed  Virgin  has  proved  to  be  God 
with  tcs,  this  is  a  matter  which  all  Christian 
hearts,  and  some  hearts  which  are  not 
nominally  Christian,  will  thankfully  acknow- 
ledge. In  the  same  way,  if  we  can  but  lay 
aside  what  a  great  writer  on  this  subject  has 
called  "  our  cold,  pedantic  way  "  of  measuring 
the  visions  and  the  thoughts  of  inspired  men 
by  our  own  range  of  insight  and  our  own 
apprehensions,  we  shall  recognise  it  as  un- 
questionable that  the  realities  of  the  gospel, 


THE  EVANGELIST  JUSTIFIED        147 

the  life  and  the  words  of  our  Lord,  and  the 
facts  of  the  Christian  Church,  do,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  answer  to  the  visions  and  the 
words  of  the  prophets,  although,  at  this 
distance  of  time,  it  may  be  impracticable  for 
us  to  discern,  in  detail,  the  circumstances  on 
which  they  threw  a  partial  light  in  the  days 
of  those  who  uttered  them. 

If,  then,  prophecy  be  such  a  great  reality 
as  we  have  been  contemplating  ;  if,  as  the 
Prophets,  the  Apostles,  and  the  evangelists 
believed,  not  a  hair  fell  to  the  ground 
throughout  the  long  history  of  the  Jewish 
nation  without  the  knowledge  of  its  God  and 
Saviour  ;  if  every  event,  and  every  inspired 
utterance,  was  controlled  and  directed  by 
that  God  and  Saviour  towards  the  establish- 
ment of  a  divine  kingdom,  under  a  Divine 
and  human  Messiah  ;  if  human  nature 
remained  the  same  throughout,  and  the 
divine  methods  of  discipline  and  guidance 
were  the  same  also ;  if  our  Lord,  as  the 
great  Head  and  Representative  of  the  nation, 
was  to  share  their  experience — or,  rather,  if 
they,  in  their  degree,  were  to  share  His — 
then  the  Evangelist  was  justified  in  his 
quick  eye  for  resemblances  between  the  story 
of  the  Messiah  and  the  history  of  his  nation, 


148    THAT  IT  MIGHT  BE  FULFILLED 

in  his  deep  conviction  that  all  that  happened 
in  our  Lord's  life — not  only  the  great 
features  of  His  character,  but  the  very 
circumstances  of  His  career — had  been  in- 
timated and  foreshadowed  in  the  past,  and, 
in  a  word,  in  believing  and  teaching  that 
'*all  this  was  done  that  it  might  be  fulfilled 
which  was  spoken  of  the  Lord  by  the 
prophet." 


VIII 

PROPHECY    IN    OUR   LORD'S 
MINISTRY 

"Behold,  I  have  told  you  before."— Matt.  xxiv.  25. 

In  a  previous  lecture  the  manner  was  dis- 
cussed in  which  the  Evangelists  interpreted 
and  applied  the  prophecies  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment in  relation  to  our  Lord  ;  and  the  pur- 
pose of  the  present  lecture  is  to  consider  the 
prophetic,  or  rather  the  predictive,  character 
of  our  Lord's  own  teaching.  He  is  the 
supreme  example  of  the  double  aspect  of  the 
prophet's  office,  both  in  interpreting  and 
enforcing  divine  and  eternal  truths,  and  also 
in  predicting  the  future.  In  the  former 
of  these  two  prophetic  capacities,  He  illumin- 
ated, with  the  divine  light,  the  depths  of 
the  ancient  law,  bringing  home  to  men's 
consciences,  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
and  in  parables  like  that  of  the  Pharisee  and 
the  Publican,  its  profound  moral  and  spiritual 
penetration,  and   their   miserable   failure   to 

149  K     2 


150  JOHN  THE  BAPTISTS  PREDICTIONS 

fulfil  it.  But  we  are  concerned  here  with 
the  other  aspect  of  His  prophetic  office — 
that  of  prediction — and  it  will  be  found  very 
impressive  to  observe  how  large,  and  even 
paramount,  a  place  is  held  in  His  teaching 
and  His  work  by  this  predictive  prophecy. 
His  Advent  was  heralded  by  prophecy,  and 
His  own  first  word  was  a  prophecy — viz., 
that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  was  at  hand. 
The  preaching  of  John  the  Baptist  may,  in- 
deed, be  instructively  considered  from  the 
same  point  of  view.  He,  too,  was  pre- 
eminently a  prophet,  in  the  sense  of  a 
preacher  and  interpreter  of  righteousness; 
but  he  was  also,  in  a  most  conspicuous  and 
striking  degree,  a  prophet,  in  the  sense  of 
foretelling  future  events  of  the  most  momen- 
tous nature.  His  declarations  respecting  our 
Lord  foretold  his  character.  His  office,  and 
His  death,  with  inspired  prescience;  but, 
apart  from  this,  his  mere  declaration  that  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  was  at  hand,  and  that, 
with  it,  the  judgment  of  the  Jewish  nation 
was  approaching,  is  sufficient  testimony  to 
his  inspired  vision.  He  based  the  whole  of 
his  preaching  on  that  solemn  prediction, 
warning  the  people  that  the  axe  was  now 
laid  to  the  root  of  the  tree,  and  that   One 


OUR  LORD^S  PREDICTIONS  151 

was  coming  immediately  after  him,  in  whose 
presence  he  would  become  insignificant, 
whose  fan  was  in  His  hand,  and  who  would 
thoroughly  purge  His  floor.  His  preaching 
was  not  a  merely  general  warning  of  the 
certainty  of  the  just  judgment  of  God  upon 
national  and  personal  sin  ;  it  was  a  specific 
prediction  that  a  certain  Person  was  immedi- 
ately at  hand  who  would  Himself  enforce 
those  judgments,  and  who  would  set  up  a 
kingdom  which  would  be  that  of  God  Himself 
— a  kingdom,  not  of  earth,  but  of  heaven. 
There  is  no  clearer  or  stronger  instance 
of  definitely  predictive  prophecy  than  the 
fact  that,  before  our  Lord  had  been  so  much 
as  heard  of,  John  the  Baptist  should  thus 
have  predicted  His  immediate  coming,  and 
the  great  spiritual,  moral,  and  national 
revolution  which  was  to  ensue. 

Now,  our  Lord  takes  up  this  prediction  of 
the  Baptist  and  makes  it  His  own.  When 
He  had  heard  that  John  was  cast  into  prison 
He  departed  into  Galilee,  and  **from  that 
time  He  began  to  preach,  and  to  say.  Repent, 
for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand."  His 
own  exhortation  to  repentance,  like  that  of 
John,  does  not  rest  simply  upon  general 
moral,    and    spiritual   considerations,  but   is 


152     PREDICTION  OF  THE  KINGDOM 

founded  upon  the  declaration,  the  prophetic 
declaration,  that  a  new  kingdom  is  about  to 
be  set  up  ;  and  He  calls  upon  men  to  change 
their  minds  in  view  of  that  imminent  fact. 
As  the  subsequent  history  has  shown,  that 
prophecy  corresponded  to  a  great  and 
momentous  reality.  From  the  time  of  our 
Lord's  departure  from  earth,  or  from  within 
a  few  days  after  His  Ascension,  a  new 
authority  has  existed  in  the  world,  a  new 
personal  authority,  that,  namely,  of  our 
Lord  Himself,  acknowledged  as  the  Son  of 
God,  acting  by  various  agencies,  in  the 
Church  or  the  Churches  which  are  called 
by  His  Name. 

This,  it  is  important  to  remember,  con- 
stitutes the  grand  distinction  between  the 
state  of  the  world  before  Christ  and  the 
state  of  the  world  after  Christ  —  a  dis- 
tinction conspicuous  to  outward  observa- 
tion as  well  as  to  spiritual  insight.  Since 
that  time  there  have  always  been  great 
societies  in  the  world  looking  up  to  Jesus 
Christ,  not  merely  as  their  Guide,  but  as 
their  Lord  and  Master,  regarding  themselves 
as  bound,  in  all  things,  by  His  authority,  as 
revealing  to  them  the  will  of  God  and  the 
laws    of  heaven ;    they   have   asserted    that 


THE  KING'S  AUTHORITY  153 

authority  against  the  authorities  of  this 
world,  and  have  made  the  laws  of  this 
world's  authorities  bend  to  it ;  they  speak 
of  Him  in  their  Creed  not  only  as  their 
Master,  but  as  their  Lord,  and  they  believe 
that  everything  they  do,  and  everything  that 
is  done  in  the  world,  is  subject  to  His  judg- 
ment, and  will  ultimately  receive  His  sen- 
tence. It  is,  therefore,  in  a  proper  sense  a 
kingdom  in  which  men  and  women  recognise 
that  they  are  subject  to  Jesus  Christ,  as  to  a 
King  whose  laws  are  supreme,  in  life  and  in 
death.  According  to  His  own  illustration. 
He  has  gone  into  a  far  country  for  a  while, 
and  men  may  for  a  time  forget  or  disregard 
Him,  without  being  immediately  recalled  to 
His  allegiance  by  force ;  but  He,  and  He 
alone,  is  their  eternal  King  and  Lord,  and 
they  will  some  day  have  to  answer  to  Him. 
Our  Lord,  as  has  been  said,  claims  this 
office  of  King,  because  He  is  the  Son  of 
God,  to  whom  the  Father  has  entrusted  all 
rule  and  all  authority  and  power ;  and,  in 
this  respect,  He  assumes  a  position  which 
is  not  so  much  as  claimed  by  the  founder  of 
any  other  religion.  Such,  then,  in  its  ele- 
mentary conception,  is  the  great  institution 
which  was  about  to  be  set    up,  and    which 


154  THE  CENTRAL  TRUTH 

John  the  Baptist  and  our  Lord  predicted. 
They  announced  the  coming  of  a  new 
authority,  the  advent  of  a  new  King,  the 
creation  of  a  new  Society,  the  revelation  of 
a  Judge  and  a  judgment  not  hitherto  known, 
and  they  called  on  men  to  accommodate 
themselves  to  this  supreme  and  imminent 
reality. 

This  was  the  central  truth  of  our  Lord's 
teaching.  In  this  great  central  prediction 
everything  else  was  included,  and  to  this, 
as  we  shall  see,  everything  returned.  But 
He  proceeded  to  delineate  the  nature  and 
the  general  history  of  this  kingdom  in  a 
number  of  parables,  which,  as  uttered  before- 
hand, constitute  a  most  remarkable  series 
of  predictions,  which  have  received  in  history 
an  ever-increasing  verification.  Take,  for 
example,  those  which  are  collected  in  the 
thirteenth  chapter  of  St  Matthew.  It  is 
there  described  how  the  chief  means  for 
the  spread  of  the  kingdom  is  the  Word, 
which  works  in  men's  hearts  like  a  seed, 
which  grows  in  one  soil  and  not  in  another, 
but  where  it  takes  good  root  brings  forth 
abundant  fruit.  We  are  told  that,  ''the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  likened  unto  a  man 
which  sowed  good  seed  in  his  field  ;  but  while 


PREDICTIVE  PARABLES  155 

men  slept,  his  enemy  came  and  sowed  tares 
among  the  wheat,  and  went  his  way.  But 
when  the  blade  was  sprung  up  and  brought 
forth  fruit,  then  appeared  the  tares  also," 
and  the  householder  gives  orders  that  the 
wheat  and  the  tares  shall  grow  together 
until  the  harvest ;  so  that  the  Society,  which 
is  to  be  known  as  the  Kingdom  of  God,  is, 
until  the  end  of  the  world,  to  include  bad 
men  as  well  as  good.  Again,  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  was  to  be  *'  like  a  grain  of  mustard- 
seed  .  .  .  which  indeed  is  the  least  of  all 
seeds,  but,  when  it  is  grown,  it  is  the  greatest 
among  herbs,  and  becometh  a  tree,  so  that 
the  birds  of  the  air  come  and  lodge  in  the 
branches  thereof" ;  that  is,  its  beginning 
was  to  be  slight,  and  its  growth  gradual, 
but  its  ultimate  extent  immense.  Again, 
it  was  to  be  like  leaven,  gradually  permeating 
the  whole  mass  of  human  life.  These  and 
similar  similitudes  exactly  describe  what  has 
been  the  character  and  the  mode  of  growth 
of  the  Church  in  all  ages  ;  and  if  we  were 
not  so  familiar  with  them,  we  should  be  the 
more  impressed  with  the  divine  foresight, 
which,  instead  of  anticipating  for  the  Divine 
Kingdom  either  rapid  progress  or  perfect 
results,    predicted   its    slow   growth    by    the 


156       PREDICTIONS  OF  HIS  DEATH 

humblest  of  means,  and  the  imperfection 
with  which  its  ideal  would  be  realised,  until 
the  day  came  for  its  final  and  complete 
realisation.  The  life  of  that  earthly  society, 
which  acknowledges  Christ  as  its  King,  has 
been,  throughout  history,  exactly  what  our 
Lord  predicted  it  would  be,  and  the  Church 
is  thus,  even  in  her  defects  and  disappoint- 
ments, a  witness  to  the  truth  of  her  Divine 
Lord. 

But  our  Lord's  preaching  contained  other 
predictions  of  a  still  more  specific  and  far- 
reaching  character.  In  the  first  place,  as  is 
acknowledged  even  by  modern  critics  who 
do  not  fully  acknowledge  His  Divine  nature 
and  authority.  He  clearly  predicted  to  His 
disciples  both  His  death  and  His  resurrec- 
tion. These  predictions  were  not,  indeed, 
put  prominently  forward  in  His  general 
teaching  ;  and  it  obviates  many  difficulties 
to  bear  in  mind  that  they  could  not  have 
been  so  put  forward  without  reducing  His 
work  among  the  Jews  to  an  unreality.  He 
came  to  His  own  people,  making  a  real 
appeal  to  them  to  receive  Him,  and  He 
exerted  all  His  power,  wisdom,  and  grace 
to  win  their  hearts  to  Himself.  It  is  evident, 
from  His  intimations  to  His  disciples,  that 


EPISTLES  AND  THE  ATONEMENT    157 

He  knew  it  would  be  all  in  vain ;  but  if 
He  had  said  so  to  the  Jews,  to  whom 
He  appealed,  He  would  have  rendered  the 
appeal  unmeaning.  In  the  end,  when  all 
hope  is  gone.  He  does  say  as  much,  even 
to  them  ;  but  not  until  every  motive  and  every 
warning  is  exhausted,  and  He  is  obliged  to 
declare,  in  bitter  grief  and  tears,  *'  Behold, 
your  house  is  left  unto  you  desolate." 

This  is  the  explanation  of  the  circumstance 
which,  though  often  much  exaggerated,  is 
to  a  considerable  degree  true,  that  the  aton- 
ing death  of  our  Lord  does  not  receive  so 
much  prominence  in  His  teaching  as  in  that 
of  the  Apostles.  He  could  not  give  it  that 
prominence  without  openly  and  constantly 
assuming  that  the  appeals  He  was  making 
to  His  people  would  be  in  vain,  and  that 
they  would  reject  Him  and  put  Him  to 
death.  When  they  had  done  so,  when 
the  dreadful  event  was  accomplished,  then 
it  stood  out  in  its  awful  reality  and  supreme 
significance,  and  the  vision  of  that  Blood  of 
Christ,  which  the  Apostles  themselves  had 
beheld,  occupied  the  centre  point  of  their 
view,  and  was  interpreted  to  them  by  weighty, 
though  reticent,  predictions  of  their  Master. 
If  the  prediction  of  His  death  had  thus  to 


158   PREDICTIONS  OF  RESURRECTION 

be  guarded,  and,  so  to  say,  confidential,  the 
case  could  not  but  be  the  same  with  His 
predictions  of  His  resurrection.  If,  indeed, 
He  predicted  His  death  at  all,  it  would  seem 
essential  that  He  should  also  have  predicted 
His  resurrection.  That  death,  without  the 
resurrection,  would  have  been  a  message  of 
despair,  alike  in  the  prospect  and  in  the 
retrospect,  and  to  both  our  Lord's  saying 
eminently  applies  :  "  Now  I  have  told  you 
before  it  come  to  pass,  that  when  it  is  come 
to  pass  ye  might  believe."  The  Apostles 
could  not  but  believe  in  One  who  had  thus 
calmly  predicted  two  events  so  utterly  in- 
credible to  them  as  His  murder  and  His 
resurrection,  and  whose  predictions,  in  each 
case,  had  been  so  exactly  fulfilled. 

But  though  there  was  thus  a  certain 
reserve  in  our  Lord's  predictions  respecting 
Himself,  He  expanded  more  and  more  clearly, 
and  more  and  more  fully,  as  His  ministry 
proceeded.  His  prediction  that  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  was  at  hand,  particularly  in  its 
relation  to  the  Jews.  Gradually,  as  their 
resistance  to  Him  deepened.  He  explained 
to  them  more  distinctly  the  meaning  of 
His  precursor's  declaration  that  ''Now  the 
axe  is  laid  unto  the  root  of  the  trees  ;  there- 


FATE  OF  THE  JEWS  PREDICTED    159 

fore  every  tree  which  bringeth  not  forth 
good  fruit  is  hewn  down,  and  cast  into  the 
fire."  Here,  again,  it  is  in  His  parables  that 
we  find  some  of  His  most  remarkable  predic- 
tions respecting  the  fate  which  was  in  store 
for  the  Jews.  Such,  for  instance,  is  the 
parable  of  the  householder,  who  let  his  vine- 
yard out  to  husbandmen,  and  went  into  a 
far  country,  and  sent  his  servants  to  receive 
the  fruits  of  it ;  and  last  of  all  he  sent  his 
son,  but  ''  they  said  among  themselves,  This 
is  the  heir,  come,  let  us  kill  him,  and  let  us 
seize  on  his  inheritance ;  and  they  caught 
him,  and  cast  him  out  of  the  vineyard  and 
slew  him.  When  the  Lord,  therefore,  of  the 
vineyard  cometh,  what  will  he  do  unto  those 
husbandmen?  They  say  unto  Him:  He 
will  miserably  destroy  those  wicked  men ; 
and  He  said  unto  them  :  .  .  .  Therefore  say 
I  unto  you,  The  kingdom  of  God  shall  be 
taken  from  you,  and  given  to  a  nation 
bringing  forth  the  fruits  thereof."  We  are 
told  that  when  the  chief  priests  and  Pharisees 
had  heard  these  parables,  ''they  perceived 
that  He  spake  of  them."  So,  again,  in  the 
parable  of  the  king  who  made  a  marriage  for 
his  son ;  but  the  guests  refused  to  come,  and 
the  remnant  took  his  servants  and  entreated 


160  DESTRUCTION  OF  TEMPLE  FORETOLD 

them  spitefully  and  slew  them  ;  but  when 
the  king  heard  thereof  he  was  wroth,  and 
sent  forth  his  armies,  and  destroyed  those 
murderers,  and  burned  up  their  city.  Even 
among  the  parables  which,  in  their  more 
general  meaning,  are  peculiarly  preci- 
ous to  Christians,  as  containing  the  very 
essence  of  the  Gospel,  such  as  that  of  the 
Prodigal  Son,  several  have  a  clearly  pre- 
dictive character  in  reference  to  the  Jews 
and  the  Gentiles.  Even  if  our  Lord  had 
not  uttered  more  direct  predictions  respect- 
ing the  fate  of  the  Jews  and  of  Jerusalem, 
these  parables  alone  would  have  been  a 
marvellous  record  of  supernatural  foresight 
and  prophecy. 

But  I  need  only  remind  you  briefly  of  the 
clear  and  terrible  prediction  He  uttered,  to- 
wards the  close  of  His  ministry,  respecting 
the  doom  which  was  to  fall  upon  the  Temple 
and  the  Holy  City.  His  disciples  came  to 
Him,  we  read,  to  show  Him  the  buildings 
of  the  Temple,  and  Jesus  said  unto  them  : 
"See  ye  not  all  these  things.  Verily,  I  say 
unto  you  there  shall  not  be  left  here  one 
stone  upon  another  that  shall  not  be 
thrown  down;"  and  soon  afterwards  His 
disciples    came    to    Him   privately,    saying: 


FATE  OF  JERUSALEM  FORESEEN     161 

*'  Tell  us  when  shall  these  things  be  ?  and 
what  shall  be  the  sign  of  thy  coming  and 
of  the  end  of  the  world  ?  "  In  answer  to  this 
question,  He  delivered  a  prophecy  which, 
although  in  some  respects,  to  be  presently 
noticed,  very  mysterious,  predicted,  in  the 
most  unmistakable  manner,  the  fearful  scenes 
of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  which  ensued 
about  forty  years  later.  "When  ye  shall 
see,"  He  said,  "Jerusalem  compassed  with 
armies,  then  know  that  the  desolation  thereof 
is  nigh.  Then  let  them  which  are  in  Judaea 
flee  to  the  mountains  ;  and  let  them  which 
are  in  the  midst  of  it  depart  out ;  and  let 
not  them  that  are  in  the  countries  enter 
thereinto.  For  these  be  the  days  of 
vengeance  ...  for  there  shall  be  great 
distress  in  the  land,  and  wrath  upon  this 
people,  and  they  shall  fall  by  the  edge  of 
the  sword,  and  shall  be  led  away  captive  into 
all  nations,  and  Jerusalem  shall  be  trodden 
down  of  the  Gentiles  until  the  times  of 
the  Gentiles  be  fulfilled."  Attempts  to 
post-date  either  the  Gospels,  or  these  por- 
tions of  them,  so  as  to  reduce  these  refer- 
ences, as  a  whole,  to  vaticinations  after  the 
event,  have  failed,  and  they  stand  upon  the 
page   of  Jewish    history  like  the   words    of 

L 


162  DOUBLE  PROPHECY 

warning  written  by  the  finger  of  God  upon 
the  walls  of  the  palace  of  the  King  of 
Babylon. 

But  they  were  not  uttered  as  mere  displays 
of  our  Lord's  prophetic  power,  but  with  a 
momentous  moral  and  religious  purpose. 
They  were  intended  to  direct  the  thoughts 
and  hopes  of  His  disciples,  and  of  the 
Church,  to  the  course  and  the  method  in 
which  the  kingdom  of  God,  which  our  Lord 
had  from  the  first  announced,  would  be 
developed  and  manifested.  It  is  a  character- 
istic feature  in  these  predictions  that  they 
are  wrapped  up  in  a  prophecy  which  looks 
far  beyond  them,  to  the  final  coming  of  our 
Lord  in  His  full  power  and  glory.  It  is  this 
which  constitutes  that  mystery  in  the  dis- 
course to  which  I  have  referred,  and  which 
no  interpretation  has  fully  succeeded  in 
dissipating.  Endeavours  have  often  been 
made,  for  instance,  to  apply  the  whole 
discourse  to  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  the 
dispersion  of  the  Jews,  and  the  abolition  of 
the  Old  Covenant ;  but  although  those  events 
were  undoubtedly  of  far  more  momentous 
importance  in  the  divine  economy  of  history 
than  we  sometimes  realise.  It  Is  quite  im- 
practicable to  explain  some  of  the  language 


IMMEDIATE  AND  DISTANT  163 

as  referring  to  them  only.  We  cannot 
possibly,  for  instance,  regard  as  fulfilled  in 
those  events  such  language  as  this  :  ''Im- 
mediately after  the  tribulation  of  those  days 
shall  the  sun  be  darkened,  and  the  moon 
shall  not  give  her  light,  and  the  stars  shall 
fall  from  heaven,  and  the  powers  of  the 
heavens  shall  be  shaken  :  And  then  shall 
appear  the  sign  of  the  Son  of  Man  in 
heaven  ;  and  then  shall  all  the  tribes  of  the 
earth  mourn,  and  they  shall  see  the  Son  of 
Man  coming  in  the  clouds  of  heaven  with 
power  and  great  glory.  And  He  shall  send 
His  angels  with  a  great  sound  of  a  trumpet, 
and  they  shall  gather  together  His  elect  from 
the  four  winds,  from  one  end  of  heaven  to 
the  other."  It  is  manifest — and  the  con- 
sideration is  one  of  importance  in  reference 
to  the  whole  subject  of  prophecy — that  we 
have  here  precisely  the  same  phenomenon  as 
in  Old  Testament  prophecy — viz.,  a  com- 
bination of  the  immediate  and  of  the  distant 
future,  so  entwined  with  one  another  that  it 
is  difficult  to  disentangle  them.  It  is  the 
same  phenomenon,  for  instance,  which  per- 
plexes us  in  some  of  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah, 
where  the  happy  prospect  of  a  return  from 
the  exile  seems  swallowed  up  in  the  far  larger 


164  THE  UNKNOWN  DAY 

and  grander  visions  of  the  final  redemption 
of  mankind. 

But  in  the  case  of  this  grand  prophecy  of 
our  Lord,  we  may,  perhaps,  see  more  clearly 
both  the  nature,  the  reason,  and  the  purpose 
of  His  method.  It  would  seem  clear  that 
the  main  and  ultimate  scope  of  the  prophecy 
is  to  direct  His  disciples  and  His  Church  to 
be  living  perpetually  in  a  state  of  watchful- 
ness, and  consequent  preparation  for  His 
return,  and  for  the  final  realisation  and 
coming  of  His  kingdom.  He  said  to  them, 
again  and  again,  that  the  time  of  the  final 
return  could  not  be  revealed  to  them.  *'  Of 
that  day  and  hour,"  He  said,  ''knoweth 
no  man,  no,  not  the  angels  of  heaven,  but 
My  father  only."  He  even  disclaims  any 
knowledge  of  it  Himself.  ''  Of  that  day  and 
that  hour  knoweth  no  one,"  as  St  Mark 
records  it,  *'no,  not  the  angels  in  heaven, 
neither  the  Son,  but  the  Father."  He  re- 
peated the  same  warning  after  the  resurrec- 
tion. *' It  is  not  for  you,"  He  said,  **to 
know  the  times  or  the  seasons,  which  the 
Father  hath  put  in  His  own  power."  That 
is  a  great  mystery  ;  but  there  could  be  no 
stronger  assertion  of  the  principle  that  the 
time  of  our  Lord's  final  coming  is  absolutely 


PRESENT  AND  FUTURE  COMBINED  165 

shrouded  from  all  but  the  Father's  own  know- 
ledge. This  being  so,  it  became  impossible 
for  our  Lord  to  say  that  the  final  manifesta- 
tion of  His  kingdom  would  not  occur  at  the 
time  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem.  It  was 
impossible,  it  was  forbidden  even  to  Him,  to 
declare  before  the  event,  that  that  which  was 
immediately  imminent  was  only  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem,  and  that  the  final  revela- 
tion of  His  kingdom  was  reserved  for  a 
subsequent  time.  For  all  that  was  revealed, 
the  two  events  might  have  fallen  together  in 
the  same  great  catastrophe,  and  it  was  there- 
fore impracticable  to  make  a  sharp  chrono- 
logical line  of  distinction  between  them,  when 
looking  forward  to  both.  The  destruction 
of  Jerusalem  was  one  great  step  in  the 
manifestation  of  the  divine  kingdom.  It 
was  the  final  doom  of  the  past ;  and  for  all 
that  men,  or  angels,  or  even  the  Son  knev/, 
it  might  have  been  the  final  doom  of  the 
present.  The  consequence  is  that  the  two 
momentous  events  are  seen  in  vision  as 
inextricably  blended.  The  grand  result  of 
the  discourse  is  that  both  events  would 
happen,  though  whether  they  would  happen 
together,  or  at  an  interval  of  time,  long  or 
short,  no  one,  not  even  the  Son,  could  tell. 

L    2 


166  WARNING  TO  OURSELVES 

The  same  principle  will  apply  to  the  prophetic 
visions  of  the  Old  Testament.  From  the 
prophets,  too,  the  times  and  the  seasons  were 
hidden,  but  they  were  granted  a  vision  of 
the  glory  of  the  ultimate  future,  and  at  the 
same  time  of  nearer  events  which  were  steps 
towards  its  realisation.  They  saw  them 
both,  but  they  could  not  tell  whether,  in 
point  of  time,  they  were  closely  associated, 
or  separated  by  a  long  interval,  and  they 
described  them  as  they  saw  them,  projected 
in  one  plain  and  prophetic  revelation. 

But  to  us,  the  course  of  events  has  now 
separated  the  catastrophe  of  the  Jewish 
nation  from  the  remainder  of  the  predictions 
in  this  solemn  discourse  of  our  Lord,  and  it 
remains  to  us  the  great  prophecy  in  which 
the  whole  of  His  message  is  summed  up. 
He  began,  as  you  have  been  reminded,  by 
proclaiming  that  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is 
at  hand.  He  concludes  in  this  discourse, 
uttered  at  the  very  threshold  of  His  cross,  by 
warning  us  that  that  Kingdom,  which  has 
already  come  in  so  remarkable  a  degree,  that 
realm  in  which  He  is  acknowledged  as  the 
sole  King  and  Lord,  and  of  which  we  are 
professed  members,  will  certainly  come  still 
nearer  to  us  ;  and  though  He  cannot  tell  us 


REASON  FOR  REPENTANCE  167 

the  day  or  the  hour,  yet  the  day  and  the 
hour  will  come,  when  He  will  reveal  Himself 
in  His  full  majesty  and  power,  to  enforce, 
fully  and  finally,  the  laws  of  His  kingdom  ; 
when  the  Tabernacle  of  God  shall  be  with 
men,  and  He  will  dwell  with  them,  and  they 
shall  be  His  people  ;  .  .  .  but  the  fearful,  and 
unbelieving,  and  the  abominable  .  .  .  shall 
have  their  part  ...  in  the  second  death. 
He  tells  us  that  that  great  consummation  will 
come  with  consequences  of  awful  convulsion 
physical,  moral,  and  political,  of  which  the 
convulsions  which  accompanied  the  over- 
throw of  the  Jewish  nation  were  a  type  ;  and 
He  calls  on  us,  by  virtue  at  once  of  the 
certainty  of  the  result  and  the  uncertainty  of 
the  time,  to  be  perpetually  on  the  watch  for 
Him,  and  to  be  in  a  state  of  preparation  for 
His  coming.  "  Be  ye  also  ready,"  He  says, 
**for  in  such  an  hour  as  ye  think  not  the  Son 
of  Man  Cometh."  '*  Watch,  therefore,  for  ye 
know  not  what  hour  your  Lord  doth  come." 
Such,  then,  in  conclusion,  is  the  nature 
and  office  of  prophecy,  as  exemplified  in  its 
highest  form  in  our  Lord  Himself.  It  is  the 
very  basis  on  which  He  builds  His  work  ;  it 
is  the  ultimate  and  supreme  motive  on  which 
He  relies.     '*  Repent,"  He  says  at  the  out- 


168  THE  FUTURE  KINGDOM 

set,  **for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand." 
*' Watch,"  He  says  at  the  conclusion  of  His 
ministry,  **for  ye  know  not  what  hour 
your  Lord  doth  come."  In  fact,  what  our 
Lord  has  done,  in  respect  of  the  motives 
to  be  brought  to  bear  upon  our  characters 
and  upon  our  conduct,  may  be  illustrated  by 
the  famous  phrase  that  He  "called  a  new 
world  into  existence  to  redress  the  balance 
of  the  old."  He  announced  a  Kingdom, 
present  in  some  degree  now,  but  hereafter  to 
be  revealed  in  infinite  glory,  in  which  every- 
one will  be  judged  according  to  the  moral 
and  spiritual  laws  He  proclaimed  ;  and  He 
warns  us  that  our  relation  to  that  kingdom 
is  of  such  momentous  importance  as  to  over- 
shadow every  interest  and  every  desire  of 
this  world.  This  Prophecy  is  the  fulcrum, 
with  which  He  would  lift  the  heavy  weight 
with  which  our  souls  are  bound  to  this  earth  ; 
and  the  experience  of  human  nature  tends  to 
show  that  no  other  leverage  is  adequate  to 
lift  the  burdens  which  hold  us  down. 

In  the  other  great  religions  of  the  world 
also  it  is  the  future  which  is  the  motive  power. 
Perhaps  the  chief  weakness  of  the  Jewish 
religion  lay  in  the  remarkable  fact,  that  its 
laws  were  not  enforced  by  the  sanction  of  a 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE  169 

future  life.  Why  that  sanction  was  withheld 
from  them  has  been  the  subject  of  great 
debate  ;  but  perhaps  the  reason  is  a  more 
simple  one  than  has  been  generally  supposed. 
The  future  life  could  not  be  disclosed  by  a  true 
revelation,  until  the  Judge  and  the  Saviour 
had  been  revealed,  on  whose  mercy,  as  well 
as  on  whose  judgment,  that  life  is  mainly 
dependent.  Any  attempt  to  depict  that 
future  without  placing  in  the  forefront  the 
Saviour,  for  whose  sake  forgiveness  is  be- 
stowed upon  us,  and  by  whom,  at  the  same 
time,  our  judgment  is  pronounced,  would 
have  been  necessarily  misleading ;  it  must 
either  have  obscured  the  divine  justice  or 
the  divine  mercy.  But  from  the  moment 
when  the  Saviour's  Death  had  made  atone- 
ment for  us,  and  the  Saviour's  Resurrection 
and  Ascension  had  assured  us  of  His  office 
as  our  Lord  and  Judge  in  that  eternal  realm 
— from  that  moment  the  vision  of  the  eternal 
future,  the  everlasting  Kingdom  of  our  Lord, 
lay  open  to  human  eyes  ;  and  its  prophetic 
revelation  by  Him  furnished,  to  all  who 
followed  Him,  a  motive  of  transcendent 
power.  So,  accordingly,  St  Peter,  who  had 
heard  this  great  discourse,  summed  up  the 
gospel  in  his  old   age.     **  Blessed,"  he  ex- 


170  THE  CHRISTIAN  HOPE 

claimed,  "be  the  God  and  Father  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  which,  according  to  His 
abundant  mercy,  hath  begotten  us  again 
unto  a  lively  hope,  by  the  resurrection  of 
Jesus  Christ  from  the  dead,  to  an  inheritance 
incorruptible  and  undefiled,  and  that  fadeth 
not  away.  .  .  .  Wherefore,  gird  up  the  loins 
of  your  mind,  be  sober,  and  hope  to  the  end 
for  the  grace  that  is  to  be  brought  unto  you 
at  the  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ." 


IX 


PROPHECY    IN    THE    EPISTLES 
OF   THE    NEW   TESTAMENT 

"How  that  by  revelation  he  made  known  unto  me  the 
mystery ;  (as  I  wrote  afore  in  few  words:  Whereby,  when  ye 
read,  ye  may  understand  my  knowledge  in  the  mystery  of 
Christ)."— Eph.  iii.  3,  4. 

In  this  concluding  lecture  it  remains  for  me  to 
offer  some  observations  on  the  predictive  ele- 
ment in  the  Epistles  of  the  New  Testament. 
In  the  last  lecture  the  momentous  place  held 
by  prediction,  and  by  warnings  and  exhorta- 
tions founded  on  prediction,  in  our  Lord's 
teaching  was  illustrated  ;  and  it  was  shown,  in 
particular,  that  the  proclamation  with  which 
He  and  His  forerunners  commenced  their 
ministry — that  the  Kingdom  of  God,  or 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  was  at  hand — was 
really  a  summary  of  the  whole  of  our 
Lord's  message,  a  brief  account  of  the 
work  He  accomplished  and  is  still  accom- 
plishing.    He  established  a  Society  of  which 

171 


172  THE  NEW  KINGDOM 

He  is  the  acknowledged  King  ;  the  existence 
of  that  Society  constitutes  the  great  difference 
between  the  world  before  the  coming  of 
Christ  and  the  world  since  His  coming ;  and 
He  taught  His  disciples  and  ourselves  to 
live  in  a  constant  state  of  watching  for  the 
complete  and  final  revelation  of  that  kingdom. 
He  explained,  also,  in  various  parables  of  a 
predictive  character,  what  would  be  the 
general  nature  and  history  of  His  Kingdom. 
But  much  in  this  subject  was  left  by  Him,  as 
it  were,  in  outline,  and  dimly  shadowed  forth, 
for  the  simple  reason,  as  was  pointed  out, 
that  it  could  not  be  clearly  revealed  or 
understood  until  the  two  great  events  had 
occurred,  on  which  it  was  mainly  dependent 
— His  atoning  death  and  His  resurrection. 
Those  two  events  entirely  transformed  the 
relation  of  men  to  Himself,  to  God  and  to 
one  another,  and  until  they  had  actually 
occurred,  their  significance  could  not  be 
explained  or  appreciated.  His  atoning 
Death  at  once  superseded  and  abolished  the 
Jewish  sacrifices,  with  the  whole  economy 
which  those  sacrifices  represented  ;  and  His 
Resurrection  and  Ascension,  followed  by  the 
gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  introduced  new 
spiritual  forces  into  the  world,  and  supplied 


NEW  LIGHT  IN  THE  EPISTLES      173 

the   means   of  life  and  growth  to  the  new 
society. 

Accordingly,  when  we  pass  to  the  Epistles, 
we  find  a  new  light  thrown,  by  the  Passion 
and  Resurrection  of  our  Lord,  alike  on  the 
present  and  on  the  future,  on  the  eternal 
spiritual  relations  of  men  to  God,  and  on 
their  mutual  relations  in  the  Christian  society 
or  Church.  I  cannot  but  remark  again 
that  it  is  strange  it  should  be  often  made  a 
complaint  against  the  theological  teaching, 
not  merely  of  the  Church  but  of  the  Apostles, 
that  it  gives  prominence  and  importance  to 
considerations  which  are  less  prominent  in 
our  Lord's  own  teaching.  How  could  it  be 
otherwise?  Is  it  conceivable  that  such 
momentous  events  as  the  Passion  and  the 
Resurrection  of  our  Lord  could  have 
occurred  without  leaving  a  deep  and  a  new 
mark  upon  the  Apostles'  thoughts  and  lives, 
and  without  altering  the  proportion  in  which 
truths,  old  and  new  alike,  appeared  to  them  ? 
It  is  by  great  actions  that  in  the  last  resort 
life  and  history  are  moulded  ;  and  even  our 
Lord's  words,  divine  and  regenerating  as 
they  are,  were  overshadowed  by  the  supreme 
effect  of  His  final  actions — -His  Passion,  His 
Death,  and  His  Resurrection. 


174  RISE  OF  THE  CHURCH 

For  our  present  purpose  we  are  mainly 
concerned  with  but  one  of  those  effects — the 
creation  and  development  of  the  Christian 
Church.  It  Is  evident  from  the  Book  of  the 
Acts  that  the  disciples  and  Apostles  had  at 
first  very  little  Idea  of  what  that  Church  was 
destined  to  become,  and  In  particular  that 
they  were  far  from  appreciating  the  manner 
in  which  our  Lord's  sacrifice,  and  the  conse- 
quent abolition  of  the  Jewish  dispensation, 
had  done  away  with  the  division  between  Jew 
and  Gentile,  and  rendered  possible  a  universal 
society.  The  effect  of  our  Lord's  Atonement, 
and  of  His  assumption  of  Royal  and  Judicial 
authority  over  all  mankind,  had  to  be 
gradually  disclosed ;  but  as  soon  as  this 
becomes  clear  to  them,  after  the  Council  at 
Jerusalem  and  the  preaching  of  St  Paul,  the 
nature  of  that  Church  and  Its  future  history 
are  revealed  to  them  In  great  prophetic  out- 
lines, similar,  In  their  combination  of  what  is 
clear  and  what  is  obscure,  what  Is  Immediate 
and  what  Is  distant,  to  prophecies  In  the  Old 
Testament  respecting  the  dispensation  of  the 
Gospel.  In  St  Paul's  writings,  in  particular, 
the  vision  of  the  Christian  Church,  of  Its 
character  and  of  Its  future,  emerges  into 
more  and  more  distinct  vision  and  becomes 


ST  PAUL'S  PROPHECY  175 

more  and  more  prominent.  The  prophetic 
vision  of  the  future  Church  grows  upon 
him,  and  gives  a  new  colour  to  his  later 
Epistles. 

Take,  as  a  striking  example  of  this  pro- 
phetic view  of  the  Church,  the  Epistle  to  the 
Ephesians  from  which  the  text  is  taken. 
If  you  recall  the  conditions  under  which 
those  words  were  written,  it  will  justly  be 
considered  one  of  the  most  astonishing,  and 
most  indisputable,  instances  of  inspired  and 
prophetic  utterance  to  be  found  through- 
out the  Scriptures.  That  the  Gentiles  are 
fellow  heirs  and  of  the  same  body,  and 
partakers  of  the  divine  promise  in  Christ 
through  the  Gospel — this  is  to  us  a  common- 
place, and  we  may  often  listen  to  such 
passages  without  their  making  any  startling 
impression  upon  us.  But  vastly  different 
would  have  been  their  effect  upon  any  reader 
at  the  time  St  Paul  wrote  them,  whether 
Gentile  or  Jew.  Bear  in  mind  that  there 
existed  at  that  date  the  most  absolute  sep- 
aration —  and  not  merely  separation  but 
antagonism — between  the  Jews  and  all  other 
races.  In  the  Roman  Empire,  though  the 
Jews  were  already  spread  throughout  it,  with 
much  of  that  cosmopolitan  genius  they  have 


176        THE  JEW  AND  THE  ROMAN 

always  displayed,  they  were  nevertheless  a 
people  within  a  people,  a  world  within  a 
world.  It  would  not  be  too  much  to  say 
that  the  Jews  and  the  Roman  world  con- 
stituted two  independent  civilisations  and 
systems  of  life.  The  Jew  lived  upon  his 
traditions  and  upon  the  promises  made  to  the 
fathers  ;  he  had  his  own  kingdom  and  laws  ; 
and  he  existed,  not  for  the  present,  but  for  the 
future,  for  that  time,  foretold  by  his  prophets, 
when  the  Messiah  should  be  revealed,  and 
the  everlasting  kingdom  of  the  Son  of  David 
be  set  up.  All  that  he  saw  was  temporary, 
and  simply  subservient  to  this  grand  result, 
and  he  made  no  secrect  of  his  contempt  for 
it,  and  sense  of  superiority  to  it.  It  was  but 
natural  that  this  feeling  should  be  recipro- 
cated by  the  Gentiles  amidst  whom  he  lived  ; 
and  the  Jew  was  to  them  a  member  of  a  race 
whose  habits  and  thoughts  were  incom- 
patible with  those  of  ordinary  human  society. 
He  was  tolerated,  he  was  used  ;  but  he  was 
regarded  as  an  alien,  almost  as  an  enemy  of 
the  human  race.  There  was  thus  on  both 
sides  an  insuperable  sense  of  antagonism. 
The  Jew  and  the  Gentile  dwelt  apart ;  each 
feeling  that  the  other  had  no  share  in  his 
hopes,  his  sympathies,  his  interests,  and  each 


ST  PAUL  AN  EARNEST  JEW         177 

expecting,  if  not  desiring,  the  overthrow,  if 
not  the  extermination,  of  the  other. 

Now  the  Apostle  who  penned  the  words 
of  the  text  was  a  representative  member 
of  this  Jewish  race,  "of  the  tribe  of 
Benjamin,  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews,  as 
touching  the  law  a  Pharisee."  To  us 
he  is  a  Christian,  and  we  do  not  easily 
realise  him  in  another  capacity.  But  the 
disciples  were  called  Christians  in  Antloch 
by  those  who  looked  at  them  from  without ; 
the  word  Is  not  used  in  St  Paul's  Epistles. 
He  did  not  for  one  moment  cease  to  be  a 
Jew  because  he  became  a  follower  of  Christ. 
On  the  contrary,  he  became  more  Intensely, 
more  profoundly,  more  heartily  and  sincerely 
a  Jew,  if  possible,  than  ever  before.  He  was 
more  thoroughly  a  Jew  because,  unlike  the 
mass  of  his  people,  he  was  a  Jew  full  of  hope 
and  assurance,  instead  of  a  Jew  depressed  by 
disappointment  and  despair.  Tenaciously 
as  the  Jews  clung  to  their  traditions  and 
their  prophecies,  the  sense  of  their  destiny 
being  persistently  baffled  created  a  bitterness 
and  desperation  among  them,  inconsistent 
with  an  enthusiastic  faith  and  pride  in  their 
vocation.  But  to  St  Paul  it  was  the  reverse. 
He  discerned,  with  the  rapt  and  enthusiastic 

M 


178  THE  CHRISTIAN  JEW 

vision  of  a  prophet,  that  the  promises  made 
to  his  nation  had,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  at  last 
been  fulfilled,  that  the  Messiah  for  whom 
his  people  had  been  yearning  throughout 
their  long  history  had  come,  and  that  the 
moment  of  their  highest  glory  had  arrived  ; 
to  him  the  words  of  the  prophet  Isaiah  were 
no  longer  a  mere  prophecy  ;  they  were  a 
realised  fact  :  ''Arise,  shine;  for  thy  light  is 
come,  and  the  glory  of  the  Lord  is  risen  upon 
thee.  For,  behold,  the  darkness  shall  cover 
the  earth,  and  gross  darkness  the  people : 
but  the  Lord  shall  arise  upon  thee,  and  his 
glory  shall  be  seen  upon  thee.  And  the 
Gentiles  shall  come  to  thy  light,  and  kings 
to  the  brightness  of  thy  rising."  His 
spiritual  eye  discerned  in  our  Lord  the 
real  King  and  Saviour  of  His  people,  who 
would  establish  a  dominion  more  real  and 
more  powerful  than  any  that  had  yet  been 
conceived.  His  soul  is  filled,  therefore,  not 
merely  with  the  faith  of  a  Christian,  but 
with  the  faith  of  a  Christian  Jew ;  and  he 
speaks  in  all  his  Epistles  in  the  spirit,  and 
from  the  point  of  view,  of  a  Jew  whose 
national  hopes  have  at  length  been  fulfilled. 
In  this  very  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  for 
instance,   he  seems,  in  the  chapter  immedi- 


THE  JEW  AND  THE  GENTILE       179 

ately  preceding  this,  to  address  the  Gentiles 
with  something  of  the  old  sense  of  superiority. 
"Wherefore,"  he  says,  ''remember,  that  ye 
being  in  time  past  Gentiles  in  the  flesh,  who 
are  called  Uncircumcision  by  that  which 
is  called  the  Circumcision  in  the  flesh,  made 
by  hands  ;  that  at  that  time  ye  were  without 
Christ,  being  aliens  from  the  commonwealth 
of  Israel,  and  strangers  from  the  covenants 
of  promise,  having  no  hope,  and  without 
God  in  the  world  : " — the  very  description 
which  any  devout  Jew  would  have  given  of 
the  Gentiles — "  But  now  in  Christ  Jesus  ye 
who  sometime  were  far  off  are  made  nigh 
by  the  blood  of  Christ.  For  He  is  our 
peace,  who  hath  made  both  one,  and  hath 
broken  down  the  middle  wall  of  partition 
between  us." 

Such  was  the  position  of  the  Apostle, 
and  from  this  point  of  view  it  is  that 
he  utters  the  predictions  (for  such  they 
are)  in  the  text.  He  is  a  prisoner 
at  Rome ;  regarded  by  the  Romans  as 
simply  the  leader  of  a  new  sect  of  Jews, 
promising  in  some  respects  to  be  more 
troublesome  than  the  Jews  themselves.  He 
feels  visibly  impressed  upon  him,  in  every 
possible  way,  that  antagonism  between  the 


180  ANTAGONISM  OF  JEW  AND  GENTILE 

two  peoples  of  which  I  have  spoken.  He 
was  the  one  man  of  that  day  who  knew  both 
worlds  thoroughly,  and  could,  therefore,  best 
appreciate  the  separation  between  them.  A 
Jew  who  was  only  a  Jew  might  shut  himself 
up  among  his  own  people,  and  might  fail  to 
appreciate  the  intensity  of  the  opposition 
which  his  name  and  faith  produced.  A 
Gentile  Christian  who  had  not  happened  to 
live  amidst  a  community  of  Jews  might 
similarly  fail  to  appreciate  the  intense  indig- 
nation and  aversion  with  which  they  regarded 
one  who,  as  they  deemed,  was  intruding  with 
unhallowed  foot  into  the  sanctuary  of  their 
faith.  But  St  Paul  could  be  under  no  such 
misconception.  By  Gentiles  he  had  been 
persecuted  as  a  Jew  :  by  Jews  he  had  been 
stoned  as  a  renegade  to  the  Gentiles.  He 
stood,  as  it  were,  between  two  worlds,  each 
protesting  against  him,  and  declaring  that 
he  had  neither  part  nor  lot  with  them.  To 
proclaim  to  the  Jews  that  the  Gentiles 
would  become  one  with  them — to  proclaim  to 
the  Gentiles  that  they  would  become  of  the 
same  body  as  the  Jews,  and  joint  partakers  of 
the  Jewish  promises — each  was  at  that  day  a 
paradox — and  an  equally  offensive  paradox  ; 
to  proclaim  it,  moreover,  not  merely  as  a  possi- 


THEIR  FUTURE  UNION  181 

blllty,  but  as  the  most  unquestionable  of 
certainties,  as  a  Divine  Revelation,  and  as 
announcing  the  greatest  glory  of  Jew  and 
Gentile  alike — this  must  have  seemed  to  the 
men  of  that  day  little  less  than  madness. 
"Paul,  thou  art  beside  thyself;  much  learn- 
ing hath  made  thee  mad,"  was  no  unnatural 
exclamation. 

Such,  however,  was  the  deliberate  and 
constant  message  of  the  Apostle.  He 
declared,  in  face  of  all  this  contradiction, 
of  this  seeming  Impossibility,  that  to  him 
had  been  supernaturally  revealed  the 
mystery  which  had  been  up  to  that  time 
hidden  in  the  consciousness  of  God.  '*  By 
revelation,"  he  said,  **  He  made  known 
unto  me  the  mystery ;  .  .  .  Which  In  other 
ages  was  not  made  known  unto  the  sons  of 
men,  as  it  is  now  revealed  unto  his  holy 
Apostles  and  Prophets  by  the  Spirit."  He 
felt  himself  standing  at  the  turning  point 
in  the  history  of  the  world,  and  he  claimed 
to  see  unveiled  before  him  the  main  and 
essential  design  which,  from  thenceforward, 
was  to  be  carried  out  by  the  Divine  hand. 
He  claimed  to  discern,  not  merely  the  revela- 
tion of  the  grace  and  truth  of  the  Saviour's 
character,   he  claimed  not  merely  to  be  the 

M    2 


182        THE  PROPHETIC  MYSTERY 

messenger  of  a  new  spiritual  truth,  but  he 
did  not  scruple  to  avow  that  the  main  scope 
of  the  divine  purposes  in  succeeding  history- 
had  been  made  known  to  him.  "  Unto  me," 
he  says,  '*  who  am  less  than  the  least  of  all 
saints,  is  this  grace  given,  that  I  should 
preach  among  the  Gentiles  the  unsearch- 
able riches  of  Christ ;  and  to  make  all 
men  see  what  is  the  fellowship  of  the 
mystery  which  from  the  beginning  of  the 
world  hath  been  hid  in  God,  who  created 
all  things  by  Jesus  Christ ;  to  the  intent  that 
now  unto  the  principalities  and  the  powers 
in  heavenly  places  might  be  known  through 
the  Church  the  manifold  wisdom  of  God, 
according  to  the  eternal  purpose  which  He 
purposed  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord."  The 
very  principalities  and  powers  of  heaven  are 
regarded  by  him  as  looking  on  with  wonder 
at  this  mysterious  unveiling  of  divine 
purposes,  and  at  this  utterly  unforeseen  and 
scarcely  conceivable  birth  of  time.  A  result 
the  most  improbable,  the  most  offensive  in 
idea  to  all  but  a  handful  of  people  then 
living,  is  solemnly  declared  by  him  to  be  the 
ultimate  design  of  God. 

Let  us  endeavour  to  realise  what  we  may 
venture,   from   a   human   point   of  view,  to 


A  BOLD  PREDICTION  183 

call  the  sublime  audacity  of  such  a  predic- 
tion. It  is  not  a  hope,  It  is  not  an  idea 
of  a  possible  development ;  it  is  a  positive 
assurance  of  the  future  course  of  history. 
But  this  prediction  has  been  realised.  It 
has  been  so  abundantly  realised  that,  as  I 
remarked  at  the  outset,  we  sometimes  fail  to 
appreciate  the  extent  to  which  it  was  a  pre- 
diction. That  which  the  Apostle  declared 
has  become  true  to  the  letter,  alike  In 
relation  to  the  Gentiles  and  to  the  Jews. 
We  of  the  Gentiles  have  entered  into  the 
spiritual  inheritance  of  the  ancient  Jewish 
people.  The  prophets,  the  psalmists,  the 
historians,  the  Messiah  of  the  Jews  are  all 
ours.  We  are  consciously,  in  spirit,  of  the 
same  body  as  David  and  Isaiah  ;  our  spirit- 
ual life  is  sustained  by  their  words,  our 
hopes  are  fed  by  their  promises.  It  Is  of 
the  essence  of  our  position  as  Christians  to 
claim  that  we  have  become  of  one  body  with 
God's  ancient  people,  and  that  all  His 
promises  to  them  are  fulfilled  to  us.  Our 
highest  pride  and  privilege  Is  that  we  are 
no  longer  aliens  from  the  commonwealth  of 
Israel,  but  that  in  Christ  Jesus  we  are  the 
subjects  of  the  King  of  the  Jews,  and  belong 
to  His  people,  whom  He  came  to  save  from 


184  EXACT  FULFILMENT 

their  sins.  St  Paul,  as  a  Hebrew  of  the 
Hebrews,  has  brought  us  to  share  his  fellow- 
ship and  his  glory.  On  the  other  hand,  his 
predictions  respecting  the  Hebrews  have  simi- 
larly been  fulfilled.  "  I  would  not,"  he  says, 
"brethren,  that  ye  should  be  ignorant  .  .  . 
that  blindness  in  part  is  happened  to  Lsrael, 
until  the  fulness  of  the  Gentiles  be  come  in. 
And  so  all  Israel  shall  be  saved."  These 
wild  dreams  of  the  Apostle,  as  they  must 
have  seemed  at  that  time  to  Jew  and  Gentile 
alike,  were  the  sober  visions  of  a  divinely 
inspired  foresight ;  and  within  ten  years  of 
the  time  when  Jerusalem  was  to  be  trodden 
down  of  the  Gentiles,  and  the  division 
between  the  two  peoples  made  more  visible 
and  more  bitter  than  ever,  the  Apostle  fore- 
saw the  intercommunion  of  the  two,  and  the 
most  essential  element  in  the  history  of  the 
next  1800  years. 

But  there  is  another  great  element  of 
prediction  respecting  the  Christian  Church 
which  especially  claims  notice  at  this  point, 
as  it  had  a  peculiar  interest  for  the  founder 
of  these  lectures.  Bishop  Warburton.  The 
purpose  of  his  foundation  was  ''to  prove  the 
truth  of  revealed  religion  in  general,  and  of 
the  Christian    in   particular,  from  the  com- 


BISHOP  WARBURTON'S  VIEW        185 

pletion  of  prophecies  in  the  Old  and  New- 
Testaments  which  relate  to  the  Christian 
Church,  especially  to  the  apostasy  of  papal 
Rome."  The  prophecies  respecting  the 
Christian  Church  generally,  on  which  we 
have  just  been  dwelling,  appeared  to  him 
to  receive  an  addition  of  extraordinary  force 
in  the  intimations,  by  which  they  were  accom- 
panied, of  the  corruption  and  apostasy  which 
W'Ould  arise  in  the  Christian  society.  His 
biographer.  Bishop  Hurd,  who  was  the  first 
to  fill  the  office  of  lecturer  in  this  Trust, 
says,  in  his  Life  of  Bishop  Warburton,  that 
some  particular  prophecies  had  struck  his 
attention  as  furnishing  the  most  decisive 
argument  for  the  truth  of  Christianity.  And 
he  quotes  from  one  of  Bishop  Warburton's 
works  the  following  observation — *'  I  have 
ever  thought,"  he  says,  *'the  prophecies 
relating  to  Antichrist,  interspersed  within 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  the  most 
convincing  proof  of  the  truth  of  Christian 
religion  that  any  moral  matter  is  capable 
of  receiving."  And  again,  ''  This  question, 
what  individual  power  is  meant  in  the 
prophecies,  is  one  in  the  right  determination 
of  which  alone  I  am  persuaded  you  might 
rest  the  whole  truth  of  the  Christian  religion  " 


186        PREDICTION  OF  ANTICHRIST 

(p.  90).  Among  his  works  is  an  interesting 
discourse  on  the  rise  of  Antichrist,  in  which 
he  points  out  that  the  conviction,  which  pre- 
vailed in  the  Protestant  Church  at  the 
Reformation,  that  the  Papacy  was  the  Anti- 
christian  power  predicted  by  St  Paul  and  St 
John,  had  been  discredited  by  the  exaggerated 
light  in  which  it  had  been  placed  by  the 
Puritans,  as  well  as  by  the  violence  with  which 
it  had  been  employed  in  controversy,  to  dis- 
credit every  ceremony  or  custom  which  was 
in  the  least  degree  connected  with  the  Roman 
Church — an  extravagance  of  which  we  have 
too  much  evidence  even  at  the  present  day. 
A  whole  series  of  these  Lectures  has  before 
now  been  devoted  to  the  investigation  of  this 
subject,  particularly  in  connection  with  the 
Revelation  of  St  John,  and  no  less  than  a 
whole  course  of  Lectures  would  suffice  to  deal 
with  it  satisfactorily. 

One  observation  may  be  made,  in  passing, 
in  reference  to  the  problems  presented  by  that 
book,  which  seems  to  have  an  important  bearing 
upon  the  general  principles  of  prophetic  inter- 
pretation. It  is  often  laid  down  by  modern 
interpreters  of  prophecy,  as  an  unquestion- 
able canon,  that  all  prophecy  is  to  be  inter- 
preted, in  the  first   instance,  in  relation    to 


THE  APOCALYPSE  187 

the  events  of  the  prophet's  own  age,  so  that 
prophecies  Hke  those  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  Book  of  Isaiah,  which  deal  with  events 
after  Isaiah's  age,  cannot  be  attributed  to 
him.  But  if  so,  what  are  we  to  say  of  the 
Apocalypse  ?  A  large  part,  at  all  events,  of 
that  book  deals  with  subjects  so  entirely 
out  of  the  range  of  observation  in  the  age 
in  which  it  was  written,  or  in  any  sub- 
sequent age,  that  after  1800  years  its 
meaning  remains,  in  great  measure,  a 
profound  mystery.  That  the  last  book 
of  the  New  Testament  should  be  a  pro- 
phecy of  supreme  awe  and  grandeur,  is  a 
final  illustration  of  the  predominant  import- 
ance of  prophecy  in  the  scheme  of  divine 
revelation  ;  and  that  it  should  be  so  mysteri- 
ous illustrates,  not  less  forcibly,  the  principle 
that  prophecy  is  really  only  interpreted  by  its 
fulfilment,  that  as  it  came  not  of  old  time  by 
the  will  of  man,  its  meaning  may  not  be 
open  to  the  understanding  of  men,  or  even  to 
that  of  the  prophet  himself,  until  history 
has  supplied  the  key  to  its  interpretation. 
The  prophecies  relating  to  our  Lord's  first 
coming  were  not  clearly  understood  before 
the  event,  and  those  which  predict  the  cir- 
cumstances   of    His    Second    Advent     will 


188  PREDICTED  APOSTASY 

similarly  receive  their  only  adequate  illumina- 
tion as  that  Advent  approaches. 

But,  without  attempting  a  detailed  inquiry 
into  this  subject,  which  would  be  inconsistent 
with  the  scope  of  the  present  course  of  lec- 
tures, it  must  be  recognised  that  Bishop  War- 
burton  was  at  least  justified  in  this  general 
observation,  that  St  Paul,  in  his  Epistles  to 
the  Thessalonians,  and  St  John,  in  his  Revela- 
tion, clearly  reveal  the  broad  fact  that  a 
great  apostasy  would  appear  in  the  Christian 
Church,  which  would  mislead  Christians  in 
the  most  disastrous  degree,  and  which  would 
only  be  overthrown  at  the  final  appearance 
of  our  Lord  Himself  The  Apostles  looked 
forward  to  our  Lord's  coming,  and  did  not 
know  how  soon  that  consummation  might 
arrive ;  but  St  Paul  expressly  warned  the 
Thessalonians  not  to  be  "  soon  shaken  in 
mind,  or  be  troubled  ...  as  that  the  day 
of  Christ  is  at  hand.  Let  no  man "  he 
said,  "deceive  you  by  any  means:  for  that 
day  shall  not  come,  except  there  come  a 
falling  away  first,  and  that  man  of  sin  be 
revealed,  the  son  of  perdition."  Similarly 
St  John  warns  his  children  again  and  again 
that,  within  the  Christian  Church,  false  pro- 
phets and  Antichrists  would  come,  and  that  the 


PAPAL  CORRUPTIONS  189 

spirit  of  Antichrist  was  already  in  the  world. 
St  Paul,  again,  speaks  of  a  distinct  revela- 
tion—  that  **the  Spirit  speaketh  expressly, 
that  in  the  latter  times  some  shall  depart 
from  the  faith,  giving  heed  to  seducing 
spirits  .  .  .  ;  speaking  lies  in  hypocrisy ; 
having  their  conscience  seared  with  a  hot 
iron ;  forbidding  to  marry,  and  command- 
ing to  abstain  from  meats." 

Now  little  as  we  may  be  disposed  to 
denounce  another  communion,  we  cannot, 
as  Protestant  Churchmen,  disguise  our  be- 
lief that  a  great  apostasy,  and  an  apostasy 
bearing  a  great  resemblance  to  some  of 
the  marks  indicated  by  St  Paul,  has 
arisen  in  the  Christian  Church,  and  has 
attained  what  we  must  needs  regard  as 
monstrous  and  pernicious  proportions.  It  is 
certainly  a  most  striking  fact  that,  side  by 
side  with  the  grand  picture  of  a  universal 
Church,  comprising  both  Jews  and  Gentiles, 
and  constituting  the  very  body  of  which  the 
vSaviour  Himself  is  the  head,  the  Apostles 
drew  also  a  picture  of  a  profound  corruption 
within  that  body,  and  that  the  latter  pre- 
diction has  been  fulfilled  as  sadly  as  the 
other  has  been  fulfilled  gloriously.  St  John 
in  his  Revelation  leads  us  to  expect  that  that 


190  FUTURE  CONFLICTS 

apostasy  will  not  be  overcome  without 
tremendous  religious,  moral,  and  political 
convulsions,  and  there  is  certainly  enough  in 
the  state  of  the  world  at  the  present  day  to 
render  such  a  prediction  only  too  probable. 
Such  is  the  general  character  of  the  Apostolic 
predictions  with  respect  to  the  future  of  that 
visible  Church  of  God  which  it  was  their 
mission  to  establish.  The  predictions  they 
uttered  respecting  it  were  utterly  beyond  all 
human  expectation ;  but  they  have  been 
already  fulfilled  to  a  most  remarkable  degree, 
and  nothing  has  occurred  in  the  history  of 
the  Church  which  is  not  in  harmony  with 
their  prophetic  statements.  We  have  the 
more  reason  to  fear  that  the  worst  and 
most  terrible  of  those  predictions  will  be 
verified,  and  that  we  ought  to  live  in  pre- 
paration for  those  supreme  conflicts  which 
both  our  Lord  and  His  Apostles  prophesied 
would  conclude  the  present  dispensation. 

Let  me  only  add,  in  laying  aside  this  great 
subject,  that,  however  imperfectly  and  un- 
worthily it  may  have  been  treated,  its  con- 
sideration cannot  fail  to  be  profitable  if  it 
only  ends  in  directing  our  thoughts  to  those 
supreme  and  final  realities,  those  last  things, 
as  Christian  writers  have  been  wont  to  call 


PERSONAL  ENCOURAGEMENT       191 

them,  which  we  all  as  individuals,  and  not 
merely  as  members  of  a  Church,  have  to 
meet.  We  are  all,  alas,  familiar — all  at  least 
who  are  old  enough,  as  is  the  case  with  most 
of  us,  to  have  stood  by  the  side  of  many  a 
grave — too  familiar  in  one  sense,  though  we 
cannot  be  too  familiar  in  another,  with  those 
grand  prophecies  of  the  future  destiny  of  our 
souls  and  of  our  bodies,  which  St  Paul  was 
inspired  to  write  for  the  lasting  consolation 
of  Christian  hearts  in  mourning  and  in  death. 
To  every  one  of  us  the  most  important  of  all 
the  apostolic  prophecies  is  his  declaration, 
**  Behold,  I  show  you  a  mystery  :  We  shall  not 
all  sleep,  but  we  shall  all  be  changed,  in  a 
moment,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  at  the 
last  trump  :  for  the  trumpet  shall  sound,  and 
the  dead  shall  be  raised  incorruptible,  and 
we  shall  be  changed."  If  the  predictions  of 
our  Lord  and  of  His  Apostles  have  already 
received  so  large  a  degree  of  fulfilment,  we 
have  the  stronger  ground  for  faith  in  these 
solemn  prophecies  of  what  we  may,  each  one  of 
us,  hope  to  experience  in  the  future.  God 
grant  that  we  may  so  live  in  that  faith  as  to 
be  able  to  join  in  the  concluding  exclamation 
of  that  great  prophecy — ''  O  death,  where  is 
thy  sting  ?     O  grave,  where  is  thy  victory  ? 


192  THE  PREDICTED  VICTORY 

The  sting  of  death  is  sin  ;  and  the  strength 
of  sin  is  the  law.  But  thanks  be  to  God, 
which  giveth  us  the  victory  through  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Therefore^  my  beloved 
brethren,  be  ye  steadfast,  unmovable,  always 
abounding  in  the  work  of  the  Lord,  foras- 
much as  ye  know  that  your  labour  is  not  in 
vain  in  the  Lord." 


PRINTED  BY  OLIVER  AND  BOYD,   KDINBURQU. 


Date  Due 


f  1  6  '40 


j^w^rw* 


*  •  •;.  . 


BS648.5W12 

Prophecy,  Jewish  and  Christian 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00055  9593 


